You wake up and you can’t sleep?Hundreds of research demonstrates the power of stimuli control therapy applied to this problem. Do you want to sleep right away, but can’t even one night?You’re not alone.
Several studies have shown that sleep is one of the main needs of the human being, the psychological results of sleep deprivation show worse cognitive performance, memory degradation, attention, physical performance and supervision, in addition, long-term insomnia is also associated with anxiety and depression. People’s sleep gets worse with age; in fact, after age 65, between 12% and 40% of people begin to develop insomnia.
- The fight against lack of sleep has already been carried out in several ways.
- Even from more extravagant drug treatments.
- The problem with medications is that they have important side effects.
- Psychological treatments can be very beneficial.
- Without causing side effects.
Professor Richard R. Bootzin has been researching sleep disorders for years at the University of Arizona and described the different psychological approaches used to treat insomnia.
Of these, the most effective was stimuli control therapy. Want to know how it works? It’s not complicated, you have to follow six very simple steps, if you try to follow them you can improve your sleep, here are the 6 golden rules:
1. Lie down only when you feel really drowsy
2. No’t use the bed for nothing but sleep. Don’t use it to read, watch TV, eat, or finish the job. Sexual activity is the only exception to this rule.
3. Si’re not in bed and you can’t fall asleep, get up and go to another room. Do what you want until you’re very sleepy, then go back to your room to sleep. Whatever the time on a watch, get out of bed or you’ll go back to sleep. Remember that the goal is to associate the bed with a quick sleep. If you’ve been in bed for more than 10 minutes and haven’t been able to sleep yet, it means you don’t follow the instructions correctly.
4. Haven’t you fallen asleep yet? Repeat step 3. Do this as many times as necessary, even if you have to do it multiple times on the same night.
5. Set the alarm and get up at the same time every morning, no matter how you slept at night. This will help, because the body has a steady sleep rate.
6. Do not take a nap during the day
This method is based on the idea that we resemble Pavlov’s dog, as we give certain environmental stimuli to specific thoughts and behaviors. Pavlov’s dog began drooling to the sound of a bell, as it associated sound with food.
After countless tests, the dog started drooling when he heard the bell, even without receiving food, then we replaced the bell with a bed and the food for a good night’s sleep, see the resemblance?If you get used to making bed a place beyond the ideal place to sleep, when you really want to use it to sleep this activity will be much more difficult, for the rest of the associations.
All this is true for thoughts and actions, it is important that you avoid watching TV in bed, but it is also important that once in bed you avoid worrying about not being able to sleep.
For what? Because it is possible to learn how to associate the bed with anxiety, then you will start suffering from anxiety :?Am I worried because I’m not sleepy? What if I can’t sleep?Should I be able to sleep?
However, this therapy works, strengthens the association between bed and sleep and weakens the association between the bed and everything else (except sex!).
Sweet dreams?
Image credits: Bruce Rolff