Ways of Treating Insomnia

After diagnosing your insomnia, you could proceed to looking for the appropriate and most effective treatment for it. The treatments for insomnia could range from very simple ones to more complicated ones depending on the type and seriousness of the condition.

Usually, insomnia could be treated through changes of your habits. Just by getting rid of old habits that may be causing your insomnia or by developing new ones would help treat it. Some of the habits that you have to refrain from are the following: smoking, drinking alcohol, drinking too much coffee or drinking coffee at night, watching television and reading engaging books prior to sleeping, surfing the internet, and taking in sleeping pills. On the other hand, the habits that you should develop to improve your sleep are avoiding naps, refraining from stressful activities and strenuous exercise before sleeping, having a regular schedule for your sleep, and reducing the amount of your caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine intake.

There are also therapies that are used as treatments for insomnia. An example would be cognitive behavior therapy in which ways to improve sleep habits as well as how to get rid of false assumptions about sleep is taught to the insomniac. Another is the stimulus control therapy in which anxieties about the bed and about sleep are being unlearned. In stimulus control therapy, the insomniac is taught to think of the bed as a place where he/she could sleep, not suffer from sleeplessness as this would cause anxieties, resulting to insomnia. Some things that are done in this therapy are avoiding doing any activity on the bed other than sleep or sex, getting up from the bed when the attempt to sleep has failed, and lying onto the bed only when sleepy.

Medications are also treatments for insomnia. However, despite their effectiveness, they are not recommended due to their side effects, short-term relief, the possibility of developing dependence on the medication, and withdrawal effects.