Using Psychotherapy to Treat Insomnia

Your body needs sleep to function properly, so why won’t it fall asleep? The answer may lie in your head. Here’s how psychotherapy can get your mind and body working together again, so you can finally get a good night’s rest.

Insomnia is more than just an occasional sleepless night — it’s not being able to sleep well or sleep at all most nights.

If counting sheep and drinking herbal teas haven’t worked, you need next-level help.

Enter psychotherapy for insomnia at Holistic Behavioral & TMS Therapy in Chicago and Aurora, Illinois, and Las Vegas, Nevada.

Our team utilizes an approach to sleep deprivation that gets to the bottom of your restless nights so you can feel rested, energetic, and productive during the day. Here’s how psychotherapy can help you manage insomnia.

Why worry about insomnia?

Insomnia is frustrating, but that’s not the worst of it. Lack of sleep takes a toll on your body and mind.

Insomnia and mental health issues

Without enough sleep, your brain can’t function correctly, causing various symptoms, such as:

Sluggish, delayed responses
Confusion and lack of focus
Irritability
Memory loss
Mood swings
Depression
Anxiety

When you’re constantly battling sleepless nights, it can affect everything from your work performance to your relationships.

Insomnia and physical health issues

Your body needs adequate sleep to repair, restore, and reset. When you don’t get enough, all your systems suffer, including cardiovascular, endocrine, digestive, immune, and respiratory. You may notice physical symptoms, such as:

Frequent colds and infections
High blood pressure (hypertension)
Weight gain
Low sex drive
Hormonal imbalance

These symptoms can lead to severe health conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), so ignoring your sleep problem is unwise.

Psychotherapy for insomnia

At its core, psychotherapy for insomnia is about addressing both the psychological and behavioral aspects of sleep.

Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is the gold standard here. It focuses on identifying and changing thoughts and behaviors contributing to sleep issues. Unlike medication, CBT-I offers long-term improvements by tackling the root causes of insomnia.

During your personalized CBT-I sessions at Holistic Behavioral & TMS Therapy, our therapists help you to identify thoughts and behaviors that hinder sleep. We use several techniques to help you establish a healthier relationship with sleep.

Cognitive restructuring techniques

The cognitive restructuring component of CBT-I involves identifying and challenging unhelpful thoughts about sleep that lead to insomnia.

For instance, if you’re anxious about not falling asleep, we help you reframe your anxiety and replace it with more positive, realistic thoughts to break the cycle of insomnia-driven anxiety.

Stimulus control strategies

Some people unknowingly associate their bedrooms with wakefulness rather than rest. Stimulus control strategies aim to break this association.

We recommend simple changes, like reserving the bed only for sleep and intimacy, to recondition your mind to link your bedroom with rest.

Also, getting out of bed if you can’t sleep after 10 minutes can prevent the frustration of tossing and turning.

Sleep restriction and compression

While it sounds counterintuitive, reducing your time in bed can help combat insomnia.

Sleep restriction limits the time you spend in bed to increase your body’s natural drive for sleep. For example, if your goal is to log in seven hours of quality sleep, but you’re tossing and turning in bed for 10 hours and only sleeping for four of those hours, we restrict the time you spend in bed to four-and-a-half hours and gradually increase it over time to retrain your brain.

Sleep compression does the same thing, only more gradually.

Relaxation training techniques

Psychotherapy for insomnia can also include relaxation training. Techniques like deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and guided imagery can calm the mind and body, making it easier to drift off.

TMS for insomnia

Sometimes, insomnia is caused by a problem with the body’s circadian rhythm. The nerve cells in the brain malfunction or misfire, causing sleep disorders.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a painless, noninvasive, and safe treatment that sends magnetic pulses to awaken defunct nerve cells and restore your circadian rhythm.

If you can’t sleep, call Holistic Behavioral & TMS Therapy or book an appointment online today to discuss your condition with one of our experts.