Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) – Irving, TX
Restructuring Your Mind for Better Sleep
If you’re living with insomnia, then you know how difficult it can be to not only get the rest you need but to also enjoy a productive and enjoyable quality of life. Fortunately, even if you have a chronic situation, our licensed sleep psychologist, Dr. Karla Austin, can sympathize, having dealt with her own sleep problems. She has the training and passion to offer cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) to address the issue. This treatment involves the use of various mental techniques to help reorganize your thoughts and emotions about sleep so that you can improve your quality of rest. Keep reading to learn more about this sleep therapy or give our office a call today to schedule a consultation.
What is CBT-I?
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is designed to explore and understand the relationship between how you sleep and the way you think, feel, or act around it. During your sessions, Dr. Austin will help you identify the emotions, ideas, and behaviors that are affecting your symptoms of insomnia. Once your CBT-I provider has evaluated and tested your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, they will then work with you to clarify and/or reframe any misconceptions or difficulties so that you can move toward achieving better rest. While the timeframe for the treatment may differ from patient to patient, this therapy method usually takes around 6-8 sessions to complete.
CBT-I sessions can often involve the following cognitive, behavioral, and educational aspects:
- Cognitive interventions: Those with insomnia may have certain misconceptions or unhelpful thoughts about sleep, such as associating the bedroom with frustration and restlessness. This approach helps to challenge these kinds of beliefs to improve a patient’s rest.
- Behavioral interventions: This treatment can include stimulus control, sleep restriction and compression, and relaxation techniques to help create healthier pre-sleeping habits and routines.
- Psychoeducational interventions: Not only will we work on the cognitive and behavioral components, but we’ll also discuss the connections they have with insomnia so that you’re more informed about the reasons behind your condition.
Benefits of CBT-I Treatment
By utilizing all three of the above techniques during CBT-I, the majority of patients should be able to achieve more restful sleep while also accomplishing a state of balance. Around 70% to 80% of people struggling with wakefulness can often experience improvements in their situation. Some of the benefits of CBT-I include:
- Needing less time to fall asleep
- More quality time spent asleep
- Waking up less during rest