Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) has been getting plenty of praise from researchers and sleep medicine professionals.
Earlier this year, the drug-free treatment was found to be especially effective in reducing the insomnia of our U.S military veterans, potentially saving lives as the sleep disorder can increase suicidal thoughts, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
According to The JAMA Network Journals, new published research is demonstrating that CBT-I is also beneficial to patients with medical and psychiatric conditions who also have insomnia. The work is significant as previous research has excluded participants with some co-existing conditions.
Dr. Jason C. Ong and his team reviewed 37 studies, resulting in analyzing data from a total of 2,189 study participants with medical conditions (including cancer, chronic pain and fibromyalgia) and/or psychiatric conditions (including PTSD, alcohol dependency and depression).
Overall, CBT-I had a positive impact on not just the participants’ sleep, but their co-existing illnesses. However, those with psychiatric conditions enjoyed greater improvements, compared to the patients with medical illnesses.
Additionally, sleep disturbances were noted to have a more of an association with “cognitive-emotional symptoms,” than physical symptoms. Reducing sleep disturbances had a major impact on psychiatric conditions.
If you have regularly been having trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up too early or don’t find the quality of your snooze satisfying upon waking up— a licensed physician or sleep specialist would be help you happy to get you get on track, especially if you have insomnia.
Give cognitive behavioral therapy a try to skip the side effects of sleep medications and increase your quality of life!
No comments yet.