What is insomnia?
Most of us have some trouble sleeping from time to time. Around 33% of people have regular difficulties falling or staying asleep. But sleep problems are more serious for some, with 6-10% of people experiencing clinically significant insomnia. Insomnia is defined as difficulty getting to sleep, staying asleep, or waking too early, despite having adequate opportunity to sleep. Insomnia is not just confined to the nighttime. Insomnia impacts daytime functioning, leading to poor mood, difficulty concentrating, memory troubles, and fatigue. Insomnia, therefore, is a 24-hour problem.
Please refer to the Sleep Health Foundation or Sleep Hub for more information about insomnia.
How can psychology improve insomnia?
Ongoing difficulties with insomnia change how people think and behave around sleep. Instead of sleep being an easy process that just happens, trying to sleep becomes an effortful and stressful time. The more one tries and worries about sleep, the harder it is to get to sleep! However, it can be tough for someone with insomnia to switch off their busy mind and stop worrying about not sleeping. Insomnia can be a very frustrating condition to manage on your own.
Thankfully, psychological treatment for insomnia, especially Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), can help get you sleeping well again. CBT-I teaches people strategies to help calm their busy minds and stop worrying about insomnia and its’ daytime consequences so much. CBT-I assists people to establish a strong sleep drive and promote healthy circadian rhythms. It helps people develop a reliable connection between the bed as a place of rest and sleep, rather than a place of being awake and frustrated! Ultimately, it helps people to let go and stop trying so hard to control their sleep. There is substantial research evidence to support CBT-I as an effective treatment for insomnia. Research has also shown CBT-I is more effective in treating insomnia long-term than sleeping medications. Around 75-80% of people experience significant improvements in their sleep from CBT-I.
How can mindfulness improve insomnia?
Jon Kabat-Zin designed the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program to help people cope better with stress in their daily lives. Living with insomnia is inherently stressful, and stress makes insomnia symptoms worse! So, if we can target and improve stress management and coping skills using Mindfulness, then by default, we improve insomnia. Recent research specifically on mindfulness-based therapy for insomnia (MBT-I) has shown it can lead to significant improvements in sleep quality and reductions in insomnia severity. MBT-I can be really helpful for people with a busy mind and symptoms of hyperarousal. MBT-I was developed by behavioral sleep medicine expert Dr. Jason Ong and colleagues to include the behavioral components of CBT-I. This program has been scientifically investigated in Australia at Melbourne Sleep Disorders Centre by psychologist Dr. Allie Peters and led to significant reductions in insomnia severity.
When is the best time to seek help for insomnia?
Sooner rather than later is usually the best time to improve sleep with psychology-based approaches. It is important to note that improving sleep does take a little time. It can take approximately 3-6 sessions over 6-12 weeks to improve insomnia, but this can vary depending on other factors such as mental and physical health conditions, motivation to implement strategies suggested, and time available. Insomnia often follows a waxing and waning pattern (i.e., insomnia gets worse in times of stress and gets better when the stress resolves). Therefore, learning strategies to improve sleep now will assist you in managing insomnia better in times of stress, when you might not have as much time or energy to focus on it. Sleep psychology aims to upskill you with all the tools you need to sleep well and become your own sleep psychologist.