Managing sleep problems – a medication-free approach (iv)

The fourth step in learning to sleep well within an ACT framework, is build. My previous posts were: Discover and Accept and Welcome. In build, we’re beginning to build new practices. This is about learning how much sleep you need, and when you need to head to bed and wake up again. I know when I had trouble sleeping at night (I refused to call it insomnia, but it most definitely was!), I thought I’d tried everything to help. I had used all the sleep hygiene strategies like no devices in bed, no TV in bed, do some relaxation as I lay down, have a regular bed-time and wake-up time – and one of the things I tried to do was eliminate coffee after lunchtime. While most of the time coffee isn’t a problem for me, I learned that when I was vulnerable to not sleeping, coffee and similar substances (including chocolate and alcohol) were not good for me. And today I still don’t drink coffee after lunch and limit myself to three or so cups a day. So… what’s different about ACT and this stage of learning to sleep again? Well, people with pain often talk about being interrupted by their pain – of waking up in the middle of the night because of pain and then not being able to get back to sleep. While there is some truth to the idea that we wake because of pain, in fact we all wake up over the course of a night. You’ll know the typical “sleep architecture” (click here for a nice explanation) where we fall into a deep stage of...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Coping Skills Clinical reasoning ACT - Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Science in practice Health healthcare Resilience Therapeutic approaches biopsychosocial coping strategies Source Type: blogs