DF Psychological Services

Insomnia, characterized by persistent difficulty to fall asleep or staying asleep, is a symptom that almost everyone in the world has suffered through at one point or another whether it is the occasional night of tossing and turning or years upon years of sleeplessness.Those who experience chronic insomnia that occurs nightly for a minimum of one month are considered to have a sleep disorder. Recognizing not only that chronic insomnia is a major health problem with significant psychological, health, and economic consequences but also that cognitive behavioral therapy is an effective treatment for chronic insomnia, researchers at University of Virginia Health System have devised an online program that offers cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to patients with chronic insomnia. The online program (internet intervention) is based on CBT that incorporates stimulus control, sleep hygiene, cognitive restructuring, and relapse prevention.To test this online CBT program, the group of researchers led by Dr. Lee M. Ritterband recruited 44 participants who had a history of sleep difficulties longer than 10 years on average and randomly assigned them to either the control group or the internet intervention group.The result? The Internet intervention group showed significant improvements on the Insomnia Severity Index, decreases in waking up during sleep, and increases in sleep efficiency compared to the control group. Moreover, the group that received online-CBT maintained their improvements 6 months post-treatment which is good news for those of us sick of counting sheep.Source:Toronto Psychologist link