Behavioral Treatments for Sleep Disorders

Behavioral Treatments for Sleep Disorders

Practical Resources for the Mental Health Professional
2011, Pages 79-89
Behavioral Treatments for Sleep Disorders

Chapter 8 - Intervention to Reduce Unhelpful Beliefs about Sleep

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Publisher Summary

Intervention is an approach to challenging unhelpful beliefs about sleep and developing/testing new (and helpful) beliefs about sleep. The “fear of poor sleep” experiment may involve some short-term sleep deprivation. Unhelpful beliefs about sleep held by patients with insomnia relate to the amount of sleep required. There are an enormous variety of unhelpful beliefs about sleep held by patients with insomnia. A belief commonly held by patients with insomnia is that poor sleep is dangerous. This belief needs to be pulled out by the roots. It is only then that fewer episodes of tiredness will be noticed. Patients will always feel somewhat tired unless the deal with the belief, because they’ll always be monitoring for/watching out for tiredness and then, of course, they’ll notice it more.

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