How to deal with your insomnia and finally get to sleep Sleeping with Science
Transcriber: Leslie Gauthier
Reviewer:
At least one out of every three people
will experience some form of insomnia
in their lifetime.
Insomnia is when you consistently
have difficulties either falling asleep,
difficulties staying asleep
or you just don’t feel refreshed
or restored by your sleep the next day.
Now, when sleep becomes difficult,
there are many things that people
understandably turn to for help,
but not all of them work especially well.
[Sleeping with Science]
For instance alcohol and THC,
which is the psychoactive
component of cannabis,
are all popular options.
However, both THC and alcohol
will ultimately make your insomnia
and your sleep difficulties worse,
rather than better.
Even melatonin will only increase
your sleep quality,
or what we call your sleep efficiency,
by just a few percent.
Thankfully, however,
there is a much more effective,
drug-free approach
called Cognitive Behavioral
Therapy for Insomnia,
or CBTI for short.
And by working with a clinician
for several weeks –
which you can do online, by the way –
the therapy helps change your habits,
your beliefs
and your general stress
around this thing called sleep.
And there are now many studies
that have shown CBTI to be
just as effective as sleeping pills
in the short term.
Yet CBTI has no negative side effects,
unlike sleeping pills.
In addition, after you stop
working with your therapist,
the sleep benefits can last
for years later.
CBTI is now, in fact, so powerful
that it is our first-line
recommended treatment for insomnia,
and it allows you
to regain your confidence
in the ability to sleep well
each and every night.