Sleep Therapy, Not Sleeping Pills, Is the Ultimate Solution for Insomnia
Counting the hours fly by without getting a good night slumber can be very upsetting night after night. Most people would have cut corners and popped a pill bottle. However, new guidelines advise people suffering from chronic insomnia to get psychological therapy to re-condition their body to sleep again.
According to a report by Stat News, the American College of Physicians recommends should not immediately treated with sleeping drugs like Ambien or Lunesta. Instead, patients should take a second look at trying psychotherapy known as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) which combines talk sessions alongside sleep tutorials to help people normalize their sleep quality and slumber time.
Sleeping pills and CBT-I significantly improve the quality of sleep but drugs do contain a number of side effects- such as drowsiness and even addiction- which could put patients in harm's way. In addition, pills aren't recommended for patients' long-term use.
Although specialized counseling does take more time and effort than getting prescribed medication, the benefits are still worth it, experts suggest. Only if all psychotherapy efforts have been exhausted should doctors prescribe the sleeping pill.
"The evidence is quite strong that cognitive behavioral therapy is effective. It works. It's long-lasting and it has the potential to decrease cost to the health care system," remarked Dr. Wayne Riley, president of the American College of Physicians as quoted by NBC News.
"We looked at 10 years of very strong research studies that looked at the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy and other interventions in terms of improving sleep for patients who have chronic insomnia," Riley noted further.
The challenges with the CBT-I approach include the need for finding health workers with the proper training to conduct psychotherapy sessions to people diagnosed with chronic insomnia as per Fox News. Furthermore, this method is not covered by insurance in most cases.
