What Works in Treating Insomnia?
Insomnia sufferers try many ways of reducing their insomnia. Self treatment with alcohol is common, but has the drawback that there is likely to be waking up later in the night. Both prescription and non-prescription drugs are used, but these have side effects, tend to work only in the short term and are often addictive if used for several months.There is a helpful summary of the downside of drugs here at helpguide.org. Physicians seem to agree that drugs, especially anti-depressants are prescribed too often. Here is an article where the American Psychiatric Association admits that there are better alternatives.
Many people and several studies have found cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to be the most effective for getting rid of problems with insomnia. It’s drug free, has no side effects and the benefits may last a lifetime. Unfortunately this type of treatment does not seem to be easily available outside of sleep clinics. Many people are reluctant to go there for cost and other reasons.
It’s a puzzle here is why is CBT not more prescribed and available, given that it works, at least according to some users and researchers. Actually, what I would like to do here is get some input from anyone with experience of trying to get rid of insomnia, and how it turned out. I’d like to hear from anyone who has tried sleeping pills, relaxation therapies, mediation, cognitive behavioral therapy and whatever else.
What do you think?
Related Articles
- Combining Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Short Term Medication is Best for Treating InsomniaA Canadian study, reported in the May 20 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that the short-term addition of the sleep medication, zolpidem (Ambien), coupled with cognitive behavioral therapy, helped more people overcome persistent insomnia. But, the researchers found that in the long-term, CBT-alone is the most effective strategy. After six months,
- On-line cognitive behavioral therapy may help sleep118 adults with chronic insomnia participated in a 5-week, online treatment for insomnia. Treatment consisted of psychoeducation, sleep hygiene, and stimulus control instruction, sleep restriction treatment, relaxation training, cognitive therapy, and help with medication tapering. There were statistically significant improvements in sleep quality, insomnia severity, and daytime fatigue. The study is reported in the journal
- Meditation improves sleep quality, reduces insomnia Patients saw improvements in subjective sleep quality and sleep diary parameters while practicing meditation. Sleep latency, total sleep time, total wake time, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency, sleep quality and depression improved in patients who used meditation. According to principal investigator Ramadevi Gourineni, MD, director of the insomnia program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Evanston,
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