Most people who suffer from insomnia are cured after one hour of CBT. True, on one condition – if insomnia has not yet become chronic.
Insomnia refers to problems with the quality, duration, or continuity of sleep that affect attention, concentration, mood, and memory. In varying degrees, up to 30% of adults suffer from insomnia, and in 10%, sleep disorders become chronic. The consequences of insomnia, in particular depression, are easier to prevent if treated early.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is especially good at relieving sleep problems, as psychology professor and sleep researcher Jason Ellis from Northumbria University in the UK decided to prove.1. His study involved 40 people who had suffered from insomnia for less than three months and were not taking medication to treat it. None of them had gone through psychotherapy before.
Participants were divided into two groups, 9 men and 11 women each. They all kept diaries for the previous seven days, describing the quality and duration of their sleep, and also filled out a questionnaire to determine the severity of insomnia. Participants in one of the groups received individual one-hour sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy and received a self-help booklet. The second, control group received no treatment.
During the therapy session, patients were given scientific information on the topic of sleep and told about individual differences in the need for sleep at different periods of life. The psychologist recommended that they stay in bed only during sleep. In addition, he calculated for each of them the desired time for going to bed and waking up and advised them to stick to this schedule.
Within a month, 60% of those treated reported improved sleep. Three months after therapy, their number increased to 73%. In the control group, only 15% showed improvement. After learning about the results of therapy, 70% of the participants in the control group also wanted to undergo it.
1 Jason Ellis et al. «Treating acute insomnia: a randomized controlled trial of a “single-shot” of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia», Sleep, June 2015.