Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia

Due to the existence of mobile phones, more and more young people like to play with their mobile phones until late at night, and find themselves unable to fall asleep at one or two o'clock in the morning. After playing with mobile phones, the brain is constantly in an excited state, which will cause insomnia. This is a common phenomenon in society today. Not sleeping at night leads to extremely poor working conditions during the day. This article introduces cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. Let’s learn about it together.

1. Take a better look at insomnia.

Because sleep is a passive process, the more nervous and afraid you are of not being able to sleep, the more likely you are to suffer from insomnia. Think carefully about your own understanding of insomnia. If you feel nervous and anxious, then this understanding seems inappropriate. You should learn to debate with this inappropriate understanding or use facts to disprove it. For example: Some people think that I didn’t sleep well these days, so my complexion must be very bad, my endocrine system must be disordered, and my health will be very bad. Here, I need to think about how many hours I sleep or rest my body every day. I can ask others if my complexion really becomes noticeably haggard? Will my insomnia these days definitely make me sick? These thoughts and debates will gradually change your previous concepts, and then the anxious mood will gradually improve, thus achieving the purpose of curing insomnia. If you are not applying it well, you can consult a psychologist.

2. Understand sleep objectively.

In fact, the sleep process is divided into non-rapid eye movement and rapid eye movement. These two periods are connected as a cycle, which lasts about 90 minutes. The rapid eye movement period is about 10-30 minutes. Dreams occur during the rapid eye movement period (if you find that a sleeping person's eyes keep moving, then he must be dreaming), so everyone dreams when they sleep. Studies have shown that a 9-8 hour sleep night goes through about 6 cycles, and this cycle tends to gradually lengthen as sleep progresses. The time spent dreaming actually only accounts for about 20% of the total sleep time.

Then why do some people say that they didn’t have any dreams the whole night? Because you will only remember your dreams when you wake up from the dreaming stage. When you wake up while dreaming, your brain is still immersed in the dream, so it is natural to feel dizzy and as if you have not woken up. In addition, if you feel that you have more and more dreams and they last longer and longer, it indicates that you may be sleeping too long.

In this case, it is not that you dream all night. In fact, you are in a real sleep state most of the time, and you may have completed the physical and mental adjustments required for sleep.

There is also a sleep disorder called "subjective insomnia". That is what some patients often say, that they feel they are not asleep, but the person next to them says that they are snoring. You actually didn’t realize you were asleep, and you slept pretty well.

By having a more objective understanding of your sleep process, you can adjust your perception of your sleep and thus alleviate the tension and anxiety caused by mistaking yourself for not getting enough sleep.

Behavioral therapy originates from the theory of conditioned reflex. Therefore, many things can be learned through practice and reinforcement, gradually forming a reflex. Psychologists of the behavioral school believe that mental state can also be changed through behavior.

Combined with behavioral therapy, the following suggestions are made for insomnia:

1. Develop regular work and rest habits.

For patients with insomnia, they should plan their days, including what time to get up, what time to eat, what time to go to bed, and what to do at what time. Stick to this plan and don't break it even on weekends. This way, the biological clock of wakefulness and sleep will gradually form and become solid, and it will not be easily broken.

2. Establish a strong “bed – sleep” reflex.

In short, it means "don't lie in bed when you don't want to sleep." If you can't fall asleep after tossing and turning in bed, don't lie down all the time. You can get out of bed and do some relaxing activities, such as sitting and reading a book, listening to music, etc., and go back to bed when you feel sleepy. If you still can't fall asleep, continue doing the above things. This may lead to severe lack of sleep in the first few nights, but it is not recommended to "make up for sleep" or lie down to rest during the day. If you are very tired, you can sit down and close your eyes to rest. This will gradually form a conditioned reflex of feeling sleepy as soon as you lie down in bed, and your sleep problems will naturally improve.

3. First make your behavior optimistic.

This is mainly for patients who suffer from insomnia due to anxiety and depression. Engage in more optimistic and positive behaviors, such as going to the park to bask in the sun or take a walk when the weather is good, participating in more group entertainment activities, communicating with more people, etc. These behaviors will gradually improve your mental state and subsequently improve insomnia.