I have a love-hate relationship with sleep. I love it but it hates me. Typically, I have no problem falling asleep. I have trouble staying asleep. I wake up numerous times throughout the night. Any little noise wakes me up. I usually remember waking up three or four times a night. These are the times I have trouble going back to sleep. My husband says I wake up 10 or 12 times throughout the night. Most days, I wake up feeling tiered. It is a good day when I don’t wake up tiered. Occasionally, I have trouble falling asleep. On these nights, I have difficulty clearing my mind. The nights I have trouble falling asleep I am typically anxious about something I have to do the next day. I have tried behavior techniques to help sleep. I don’t have
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Some sleep disorders such as apnea and hypersomnia require a medical doctor. Insomnia (not including sleep apnea), or individuals who may not have insomnia but struggle falling asleep or staying asleep would be best served by a counselor or psychologist. Often times, I think sleep problems can be helped by reducing the amount of stress and anxiety an individual experiences. People frequently have trouble falling asleep due to thinking about things that happened that day, and not being able to “turn their brain off.” I think teaching techniques to reduce stress and anxiety could help with sleep. I also think that showing a client the current evidence that suggest you don’t need 8 hours of sleep, humans can do just fine on 5 hours of sleep may help reduce anxiety about not sleeping enough.
I would also suggest cognitive and behavior strategies that include: following the same bedtime routine every night, only using the bedroom for sex and sleep, limiting screen time 30 minutes before bed, relaxation techniques, and possibly mediation. Also, sleep restriction therapy (a form of behavior therapy). Wherein the client drastically reduces the amount of time they spend in bed, then after a period of sleep restriction, the amount of time spent in bed is then slowly increased (assuming the amount of time they actually sleep stays the same) (Pinel,
Some sleep disorders such as apnea and hypersomnia require a medical doctor. Insomnia (not including sleep apnea), or individuals who may not have insomnia but struggle falling asleep or staying asleep would be best served by a counselor or psychologist. Often times, I think sleep problems can be helped by reducing the amount of stress and anxiety an individual experiences. People frequently have trouble falling asleep due to thinking about things that happened that day, and not being able to “turn their brain off.” I think teaching techniques to reduce stress and anxiety could help with sleep. I also think that showing a client the current evidence that suggest you don’t need 8 hours of sleep, humans can do just fine on 5 hours of sleep may help reduce anxiety about not sleeping enough.
I would also suggest cognitive and behavior strategies that include: following the same bedtime routine every night, only using the bedroom for sex and sleep, limiting screen time 30 minutes before bed, relaxation techniques, and possibly mediation. Also, sleep restriction therapy (a form of behavior therapy). Wherein the client drastically reduces the amount of time they spend in bed, then after a period of sleep restriction, the amount of time spent in bed is then slowly increased (assuming the amount of time they actually sleep stays the same) (Pinel,