Staying out of bed until you're truly sleepy is an important part of CBT.
(UYEN LE/BLUESTOCK- ING/ISTOCKPHOTO)
Prescription drugs can be expensive, inconvenient, and cause unpleasant side effects. The strategies you learn though CBT, on the other hand, can be used anytime, anywhere—without a prescription or fear of unwanted repercussions.
A 30-year insomniac
A light sleeper in high school, Charles Learn had trouble getting back to sleep when something as routine as a screeching cat woke him up. Three decades later he was spending so much time awake that he averaged just three to four hours of sleep a night.
Learn, 52, a fiber optics inspector from Redlands, Calif., constantly worried about being tired at work. By midnight each night the floodgates had opened and other anxious thoughts poured in—things that needed doing around the house, family problems that needed solving.
He finally visited a cognitive behavioral therapist at age 51, after medication no longer aided his sleep.
Step 1: Understanding why you're awake
In six weekly sessions, Learn examined his sleep and anxiety issues. "My therapist wanted to get to the root of why I was not sleeping, what thoughts were going through my head and keeping me awake," he says. "I had to look at what was going on in my life and put it into proper perspective."
This, of course, was easier said than done: Learn was in the process of building a second house on his property for his aging in-laws. He was also planning one daughter's wedding, while his other daughter—and her children—moved into his home after her marriage broke up.
More about behavioral therapy
"I had it in my mind that I needed eight hours of sleep whether I was tired or not," Learn says. "Then I'd lay there in bed, thinking. 'I'm still not sleeping, I'm still not sleeping.'"
Now he knows that some nights six hours is plenty for him. "Realizing and finally accepting that has helped me wipe my mind clean," he says.
