![]() ![]() Chronic insomnia normally starts like that, and then becomes persistent in people who develop overly negative thoughts about their sleep or foster poor habits, like taking long naps. Maybe you have trouble falling asleep for a few days before a big presentation, or for a few weeks after someone close to you dies. It’s normal for people to have short-term sleep issues. Here’s how it works: How does insomnia become chronic? “It’s a very clear alternative to pills that’s more effective, and much safer,” says David Gardner, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacy at Dalhousie University. It’s so effective that it’s become the recommended first-line treatment in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. wake-ups, and trains your body by keeping a strict sleep schedule for about a month. The treatment helps you change how you think about those 3 a.m. “The people we see, they’ve given up caffeine, they don’t drink, they’ve tried all of this already.”Ī different solution has proven to help many people: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is an offshoot of standard CBT (a popular form of talk therapy that focuses on reframing negative thoughts and changing unhelpful behaviours) that focuses exclusively on sleep issues, retraining your body to sleep soundly. ![]() “That’s the most well disseminated treatment, but it’s more for good sleepers who want to have good habits,” says Carney. Other people embrace the tenets of sleep hygiene, doing things like avoiding caffeine after lunch, banning screens from their bedrooms or exercising regularly. But they’re habit-forming, have side effects and become less effective over time. The answer many insomniacs reach for is sleeping pills. It’s even suspected to increase the risk of certain types of cancer. There are physical effects, too: Insomnia raises your risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and chronic pain. It leaves people more than just drowsy - they become irritable, unmotivated and preoccupied with sleep. And when insomnia becomes chronic - when people have problems falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up too early at least three nights a week for more than three months - it can be crippling. It’s an incredibly common affliction: Over half of adult women regularly have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, according to information released by Statistics Canada last month. One study said the average time before people got help was a decade.” ![]() “By the time we see them, they’ve usually had a sleep problem for years and years. “We see everyone, from 30-year-olds to 80-year-olds,” says Carney, an associate professor and director of the Sleep and Depression Laboratory at Ryerson University in Toronto. Colleen Carney says the people who come to her sleep clinic have one thing in common: “They’re desperate.” Okay, two things: “And skeptical.” ![]()
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