Photo: nocnalunatyczka
Hey, Early Birds and Night Owls!
This post is the second part about insomnia which is a topic I’m finding resonates with a whole lot of people. If you missed Part 1 about Insomnia, I recommend reading that post here for some basic information.
To help us learn more about insomnia, I’ve done a series of short interviews with Samantha Anders, PhD LP. Sam is a psychologist who specializes in behavioral therapy for sleep disorders like insomnia. I’m using more custom-made videos in this post. I hope you like it – if so I’ll do more videos in the future!
Here we go!
“I want to teach people to sleep under their own power”
In this video clip, Sam Anders talks about:
- The best treatment for insomnia.
- Introduces us to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBTI)
- Long-term benefits of behavioral therapy for insomnia.
I admit that before I met Dr. Anders, I didn’t know much about behavioral therapy for insomnia. I knew even less about the field of CBTI. That’s too bad, because as a general internal medicine doctor, I see people with insomnia, like all the time and all I had to offer was a sympathetic ear and prescriptions for sleep medications. Relying on pills for insomnia never felt quite right. Clearly there is a role for medications, but as we learned in that previous video, there are other options that are better, especially for people with chronic insomnia that affects their daily lives.
“Don’t give insomnia a reason to be around”
How many of us have found ourselves at one time or another lying in bed in the middle of the night, basically staring at the ceiling or the alarm clock? I know I have. I think just about all of us have been there, done that.
Dr. Anders addresses what we should be doing in this situation in this short clip:
Good advice. Lying awake in the middle of the night? As Sam says, “Do something that is calming and relaxing” and maybe leave the screens off and the fridge door closed.
“I wouldn’t wait. The sooner, the better.”
People sometimes ask me when they should be seeing a sleep professional for their insomnia. So many of us have chronic insomnia that has been affecting our lives for years and years. We’ve tried every pill and trendy new remedy and we still suffer. Listen to Sam’s advice on this:
Maybe we are like me and weren’t even aware of behavioral psychologists like Sam that specialize in exactly the kind of behavioral therapy that represents the best treatment available for chronic insomnia.
So if you have trouble sleeping frequently and this has been persisting for many months, I suggest seeing someone like Sam Anders. She is available at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center at Hennepin County Medical Center. Click the link for more information on making appointments.
Other than Sam herself, there are resources to help you find a sleep behavioral psychologist. In that last video clip she mentioned the Society for Behavioral Sleep Medicine. You may want to check out their site by clicking the link – they have providers literally all over the world.
I hope you learned something about behavioral treatments for insomnia. I wanted to focus on that particular part of sleep medicine since I think it is an area we all could benefit from learning more about. I especially want to thank Samantha Anders for sharing her expertise with us, both on the radio broadcast a few weeks ago (listen to the podcast of that show here) and by talking with us for this post. Thanks, Sam!
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Lots of ways to stay connected!
-David
