Are you having trouble sleeping? Well, you are among millions of people the world over who are suffering from this problem, and everyone needs professional help to overcome it. When it comes to solutions, it's essential to identify the reason which is causing your loss of sleep.
Various reasons cause sleep disorders like international travel or the after-effects of a medical procedure. Whatever the cause, your medical practitioner will prescribe a combination of sleep aids along with therapy for effective long-term treatment of your disorder.
One of the popular solutions to sleep disorders is cognitive-behavioral therapy or CBT that identifies and helps you overcome negative thoughts and beliefs disrupting your sleep.
There are two aspects to CBT, cognitive and behavioral. While the cognitive part helps you with recognizing the negative thoughts or cognitions, the behavioral factor enables you to replace your negative behavior with healthier ones.
CBT is a 3-step process that begins with identification, challenging, and replacement of your negative thoughts with more calming and realistic ideas.
To find out how CBT works and how you can benefit from it, read on.
Negative Thoughts That Lead to Sleep Problems
Unrealistic Expectations:
To think that you will sleep soundly is unrealistic. Most people have trouble sleeping, and knowing that you will sleep better with practice is more realistic.Exaggeration:
It is unrealistic to say that your sleep quality is poor every night. A more realistic expression would be that on some nights, you do sleep well.Catastrophizing:
When you feel you will crash at work without adequate sleep, you're negative. Saying that you would be tired at work and come home to get quality sleep is a more realistic approach.Hopelessness:
Thinking that being able to sleep is beyond you is a negative thought. Alternatively, thinking that there are solutions for better sleep is more realistic.Fortune Telling:
You feel that you won't get more than an hour of sleep is negative thinking. A more realistic thought would be you could get to sleep faster with sleep strategies.6 Therapeutic Practices for Better Sleep
Here are some of the therapeutic practices included in CBT that your medical practitioner can recommend depending on the disorder:Sleep Restriction Therapy:
This method is based on sleep deprivation to solve your insomnia. You are spending a lot of time in bed with negative thoughts in your mind about sleeping that keeps you awake. A worry cycle starts where you can't get sleep, and this reinforces your negative thoughts about sleep.
Sleep restriction therapy limits the time you spend in bed, induces sleep deprivation, and you sleep more readily and challenge the negative thoughts. There is a positive transformation in your mindset, and your sleep quality improves.
Stimulus Control Therapy
This therapy focuses on identifying sleep habits that cause insomnia. If you use your bedroom as your workplace or watching television, then you are likely to have problems with sleep. You will be conditioned to use the bedroom for sleeping.You will be given a sleep schedule to be followed on weekdays and weekends to establish consistency in your sleep timings.
Sleep Environment and Hygiene
The environment that you have in your bedroom has an impact on the quality of your sleep. You need to change your lifestyle to a more healthy one to help you sleep better.An environment that is comfortable, cool, quiet, and dark is ideal for sleep. You might be recommended to use earplugs, a sound machine for cutting out noise, or blackout shades by your therapist for improved sleep quality.
The right health habits like having a regular exercise routine, not having a massive and late dinner, avoiding caffeine and nicotine altogether if possible or avoiding them in the latter part of the day, and of course, relaxing before you go to bed will go a long way in helping you sleep.
Paradoxical Intention
You avoid any effort to fall asleep in this mode of treatment. When you make an effort to sleep, you stay awake because you worry that you can't sleep. This therapy helps you stop worrying about insomnia, and this allows you to fall asleep easily. 
When you try to stay awake, the opposite happens. You do it passively by keeping your eyes open when you lie down. You don't use external stimuli like physical activity to stay awake.
The anxiety cycle is interrupted by this shift of focus.
Relaxation Training
With relaxation techniques, you keep stress at bay, and you are better prepared for sleep. There are a lot of options to choose from, like mindfulness meditation, breathing exercises, or progressive muscle relaxation. You can use a combination of techniques to help you sleep better.Mindfulness meditation checks racing thoughts and slows them down. You avoid negativity, making your mind and body calmer, and there is a primary focus on breathing with greater body and mind awareness.
Under breathing techniques, you have the body scan technique where all the parts of your body are scanned for signs of tension and eventually overcoming these for improving your sleep.
Biofeedback
There are certain physiological functions like muscle tension, breathing, brain waves, muscle contraction, sweat gland activity, temperature, and heart rate that are measured using sensors under biofeedback. You will not only be able to recognize the anxiety response of your body but control it as well.Once the physiological function causing the problem has been identified, then remedies like deep breathing, muscle relaxation, guided imagery, and meditation are used in biofeedback therapy to cure your insomnia. The different types of biofeedback include electromyogram, thermal EEG, electrodermal activity, and heart rate variability.
Enjoy Quality Sleep With The Right Therapy
Though pain medicine helps with sleep disorders, when combined with the right therapy, it has a more beneficial impact as far as your insomnia is concerned. When you change your lifestyle to a more pro-sleep oriented one like having the proper diet, exercise, and sleep schedule along with the right medication, you sleep soundly.Stop worrying and start sleeping the right way!
