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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (nytimes.com)
7 points by navels 1029 days ago
3 comments

Personal experience with CBT-I from years ago. One technique my therapist helped me develop was keeping a mat/ pile of blankets next to my bed.

The article mentions getting out of bed if you can’t sleep for 20-30 minutes. For me, that would mean going in my “second bed”, and tossing and turning down there, before getting back in bed after exhaustion.

The whole goal/ success was associating bed with “sleep, sex, and being sick” (three S’s)

Basically, even now, as soon as I get up, I try to get out of bed as soon as possible. I rarely lay in bed on my laptop or watching TV. When I feel like lounging in bed and using my laptop, watching TV or playing my Switch, I move to my guest room. My brain/ body has pretty solidly learned the habit that laying in my actual bed = time for sleep.

It took a long time (maybe a year?) to develop the pattern/ habit, and of course YMMV, but, CBT-I has done wonders for me