12 Ways to Get Rid of Insomnia
By: Christine Hammond LMHC
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Image by: SleepZoo.com
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Beth
thought she was losing it. She had a hard time concentrating at work,
struggling with memory recall, frequently moody, short tempered, slow to make
decisions, craving sugar and caffeine, and got into a couple of minor car
accidents within the last few months. Her bizarre symptoms didn’t seem to add
up to anything at first.
So she
went to a medical doctor. After several tests, her doctor said there was
nothing medically wrong with her and recommended her to a therapist. During the
first session, the therapist inquired about the quality of her sleep. Beth
confessed to having wrestled with insomnia for the past several years. Some nights,
she had a hard time getting to sleep while other nights she woke up several
times. Her physician gave her some sleeping medication years ago but it did not
seem to be working anymore.
The
therapist suggested an alternative approach to her insomnia. Cognitive
behavioral therapy designed for insomnia has been proved to be more effective
than taking medication alone. Beth was willing to try the approach. Here is
what her therapist recommended.
1. Minimize negative thoughts. Beth would tell herself
at night, “I’m never going to get to sleep,” and “I won’t stay asleep for
long.” Saying these sentences is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more it
is repeated, the more likely it is to happen.
2. Maximize positive thoughts. Replace the negative thoughts with positive
ones like, “I’m going to get as much sleep and I need,” and “I can sleep
through the night.” Beth wrote out a couple of statements that she would say
every night as part of her new bedtime routine.
3. Decide the amount of sleep. Not everyone needs the
same amount of sleep. In Beth’s family, her relatives tended to only get about
6 hours per night. She reported feeling fine with this amount of sleep as long
as the time was consistent.
4. Set target sleep times. The therapist discovered that Beth went
to bed at different times nearly every night. She also did not have a set time
to wake up in the morning. Knowing that she needed 6 hours per night, she
agreed to try going to bed around 11pm and waking up around 5am.
5. No napping. In the past, Beth would take naps when she got
home in the afternoon. Sometimes, she would sleep for several hours at a time.
This made sleeping at nighttime even worse. Even though she enjoyed her naps,
Beth agree to give them up.
6. Arrange bedroom for sleep. Beth set up a small
office area complete with computer and TV in her bedroom. Every time she went
into her bedroom, she was conditioned to think about work instead of sleep.
This made sleep more difficult. So she moved her office area to the living room
instead.
7. Minimize electronic devices. Part of Beth’s old
nighttime routine was to watch TV and play a game on her ipad. She thought this
was relaxing her but it really overstimulated her and made sleep more
difficult. She agreed to stop using all electronic devices about 30 minutes
before bed.
8. Eliminate obsessions. One of the things that kept Beth up late at
night was her thinking about all the things she needed to do the next day.
Instead of making a to-do list just before bed, Beth made it 2 hours earlier.
This allowed her to schedule time to obsess about her work without it
interfering with her sleep.
9. No exercise before bed. Beth often worked out at night, about an
hour before she wanted to go to sleep. This only increased her adrenaline which
made it difficult to fall asleep. She instead changed her work-out time to
first thing in the morning.
10. No eating before bed. Late night dinners were very popular in Beth’s
family. After she worked out, Beth would eat her dinner. Instead, she was asked
to not eat a main meal within 2 hours before bed. She could eat a light
high-carb snack if she was hungry but not a meal.
11. Limit alcohol. Beth used alcohol to encourage sleep. However,
this is a poor solution as too much alcohol can impair the quality of sleep.
Instead, Beth agreed to limit the alcohol consumption to one small serving.
12. Bedtime routine. Most parents naturally do a bedtime routine for
a child: take a bath, read a story, and listen to soft music. But adults seem
to lose these good habits. Beth decided to adopt a similar routine of doing
some mild yoga stretches, drinking chamomile tea, taking a bath, reading a
light book (not on the ipad), and doing deep breathing exercises.
With her new rules in
place, Beth found that she was sleeping more soundly within a few weeks without
the use of medication. Her insomnia was gone, her memory improved, she was in a
better mood, and her accidents subsided.
To schedule an appointment with Christine Hammond,
Please call our office at 407-647-7005.
