Insomnia definition:
a sleep disorder characterized by difficulty in initiating or maintaining a restorative sleep to a degree in which the severity and persistence of the sleep disturbance causes clinically significant distress, impairment in a significant area of functioning, or both.
Source: Sleep Foundation
Insomnia is a word that gets thrown about whenever we talk about sleep troubles. But do we really know what it means? Most people would characterise insomnia as the inability to sleep and, for some, it can feel like a relentless battle. The effects of insomnia can be debilitating and it is a growing issue, with The Sleep Council reporting over a quarter of us now suffer from insomnia. Here, the Insomnia Clinic discusses the condition and what can be done about it.
Although we’re all different, research has shown that there is a distinct pattern to how sleep loss becomes chronic and insomnia develops. That pattern follows three stages.
Firstly a person may be more prone to sleep difficulty than others. They may be a naturally anxious person or struggle to ‘switch off’ at night. These factors would predispose somebody to insomnia.
There is also usually something that triggers an episode of insomnia. This could be a period of emotional stress like losing a loved one or going through a divorce. It could be a sudden change in the environment – for instance, a building site appearing nearby or it could be a simple as a cough and cold which disrupts your sleep pattern. These are all things that would lead most of us to lose some sleep but when things don’t return to normal, it can lead to insomnia.
As a result of the poor sleep, habits and behaviours develop which are intended to combat the effects of sleep loss but which end up making the problem worse. We sleep during the day, we drink tea or coffee to try and stay alert and although these things can help us in the short term they make it more difficult to sleep at night. We start to spend more time in bed in order to get more sleep which disrupts our body clock making it harder to sleep well and that’s when we get trapped in the vicious cycle of insomnia.
Research has shown that long-term sleep problems can be helped by Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for insomnia (CBT-i). CBT-i teaches techniques to address the factors which are common in insomnia such a managing a ‘racing mind’ and learning how to overcome the worry associated with poor sleep. In addition, CBT-i helps those with poor sleep to learn how to create a healthy sleep routine by focusing on creating a strong connection between bed and sleep so that the person can essentially ‘re-learn’ how to sleep well again.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia is a structured programme that can be delivered either in face to face sessions by a trained therapist, online or via apps such as Sleepio. Unlike sleeping pills, CBT-i can help you to overcome the underlying causes of your sleep problems.
A recent study by Queen’s University in Canada showed a ‘medium to large’ improvement in the length of time taken to get to sleep after participants had received this type of therapy. This has since been cited by the NHS who concluded that ‘CBT delivered in primary care does indeed help people with insomnia get to sleep more quickly and spend less time lying awake after waking in the night’ and that ‘these effects last for several months to a year.’
