IMSOMNIA
Are you struggling to sleep? Has this been a problem for a while?
You may be able to access Sleepstation on the NHS for free. This is a clinically validated sleep improvement and insomnia, online course. It utilises Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBTi).
CBTi is the recommended first line treatment for insomnia, aiming to improve sleep habits and behaviours.
What is CBT-I?
CBTi includes approaches such as:
Sleep Hygiene
Visit Patient Info (https://patient.info/mental-health/insomnia-poor-sleep) for a good webpage describing changes you can make to improve sleep hygiene. 30% of patients will get better with sleep hygiene alone.
Stimulus Control
A way of retraining the brain that bed is for sleep. Five simple rules:
Go to bed only when sleepy.
Get out of bed if you are not asleep within 15-20 minutes (repeat as necessary).
Use the bed and bedroom only for sleeping.
Get up at the same time every day.
No napping.
Sleep restriction
Use a sleep diary to records how long you are asleep and how long you are awake in bed, and then restrict your time in beds to your asleep time only.
For example, if your bedtime is 110pm and your get up times is 7am, and your total time in bed is 8 hours and total time asleep is 6 hours, go to bed at 1m to restrict your sleep to 6 hours. After 2 weeks you should notice an improvement with deeper, better-quality sleep.
If you feel tired after 2 weeks, you can add an extra 30 minutes to your” in bedtime”. Increase every 2 weeks as necessary.
To register, you can access Sleepstation via an app on your mobile device, or on the web via this link:
