Tag: CBT-i

Can Your Sleep Tracker Make Your Sleep Worse?

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If you are the type of person who becomes more anxious when you Google your headache symptoms, or fixates on whether your retirement fund went up a percent or down a percent…you probably aren’t a candidate for a sleep tracker.  It could make your sleep issues worse, and that can happen more quickly than you realize.

Why?

stethoscope with heart

Because the information from a wearable device or the app on your iPhone isn’t as actionable as the designers want you to believe it is.  After all, that doesn’t move products.  You will have a lot of data to digest, and some of it is useless, some of it is helpful, and some of it is only valuable when looked at in the context of your day, your week, and with your attitude attached to it. When the device assesses the data, it is making assumptions about you.  You, and your sleep issues, are probably more unique than they think.  The stress of not knowing what to make of the data, or getting it wrong and taking useless or counterproductive actions, could mess with your sleep.

What good sleep looks like isn’t distillable to only the data.  This is why getting a polysomnograph at a facility that does sleep studies doesn’t tell you how to fix your sleep.  It simply doesn’t.  More often, your data tells the clinicians about what you don’t have.  Nice for them to know.  You don’t have OSA, and you don’t have a neurodegenerative disorder.  You still sleep poorly, and you still want help for your sleep.

Understanding the psychology of sleep, as well as the biology of sleep, will help you more.  And if you are someone that has to do things “right”, worries that every cough is TB, or whose day is sunk when you calculate that you slept less than the recommended 7.5 hours…toss that tracker in the nightstand drawer.  It could make you stay awake tonight, wondering if your sleep issues are killing you, making you a bad parent/partner/friend/employee, or if those numbers are an indication that you already have some dread disorder.

Want to feel good about yourself and your sleep?  

Do sleep coaching with me!

 

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Are You “Wired and Tired”?

alarm-clock

That is a phrase I heard Dr. Matthew Walker use to describe, well, most of us with insomnia.  He is on the staff at UC Berkeley’s sleep program.  It refers to being wide awake but exhausted at bedtime.

We “release” into sleep.  We must sufficiently drop the worries of the day in order to get to sleep and stay asleep.  Or we don’t sleep much or very well.  Disturbing dreams and the inability to fall back asleep are the consequences of being unable to disconnect from the challenges of our awake lives.

What can you do?

Using CBT-i strategies, I teach my clients the 5 most effective evidence-based strategies to let the day go so that they can sleep.  This works well for many clients, but there are additional things we can do to reduce the effects of anxiety in order to get better sleep.

Some clients also need to work on making their daily routines support sleep.  Matching their routines to their body’s chronotype (circadian pattern) as well as their specific sleep needs makes falling asleep easier.   The older we get, the more we need to work with our chronotype rather than against it.

A client  may also need to expand their wind-down routine, making it longer or more layered.  Adapting the bedroom environment to maximize sleep removes another barrier to rest.  We do this together, because there is no benefit in reinventing the wheel.  Sleep therapy is not guiding someone through a manual.  It is tailored to the person like a well-made suit.

breathing trauma

Using the science and receiving targeted support is the most effective way to improve sleep problems that are not the result of a medical condition.  And even if there is a medical condition, most people have to alter some bad habits they picked up along the way to being diagnosed and treated.  CPAP users, this means YOU!

Want more information on improving your sleep?  We can work on this together!

 Contact me:  www.360sleepconsulting@gmail.com