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Recommended: Go To: Lesson 5 Website  for the complete & free “Cure you Insomnia” course and a better web experience.  Contact Dennis: Voice message or text: 408-990-3882 or dennis@sleeptohealthy.com

Lesson Summary on Sleep Restriction Therapy:

• Compact sleep is about the time you spend in bed verus asleep.  It is one of the functions and mechanisms of sleep.
• A bad strategy to deal with insomnia is to spend more time in bed trying to sleep.  But this makes sleep more elusive.  It is not how to cure insomnia.
• Do I have insomnia? Non-compact sleep is a reliable sign you do.  Use sleep restriction therapy to cure it.
• The way sleep works: 1 – You build up enough sleep pressure. 2 – Your circadian rhythm prepares your brain and body for sleep. 3 – Your brain checks that it is safe to sleep.
• You can’t make sleep happen, you only improve the probability it will happen.  One way is with sleep restriction.
• Things you do or have that are not on the CBTi or Cognitive Therapy for Insomnia ciriculum likely by themselves don’t make you sleep.
• Compact sleep increases your sleep drive and re-builds your sleep confidence.
• Compact sleep is measured by sleep efficiency: Time sleeping / Time in bed.  It answers “Do I have insomnia?”
• If you have a low sleep efficiency, it is a better predictor that you have insomnia than how long you sleep. That makes it your new sleep metric.
• To measure and improve your sleep efficiency, see the Links section.
• Normal sleep efficiency is 80% to 90%.  Compacting your sleep will get you to this goal.
• It is normal to awaken at night.  A person needing 7 hours of sleep with 80% sleep efficiency is awake 1 3/4 hours.
• To compact your sleep you set a sleep duration and then adjust based on your efficiency.  See the Links section for details on how to do this.
• When compacting your sleep you may notice that you feel and function better on less sleep.
• Compacting your sleep is hard to do.  Use caution if alertness is essential for safety reasons or if a medical or mental condition might be adversely affected.  Consult your health care professional 1st.
• Compacting your sleep is the hardest but fastest way of improving your insomnia.
• Napping is discouraged while compacting, but allowed if done right: 20 to 25 minutes maximum and before 4 pm.
• Over the long run it is easy to fall back into low sleep efficiency.  Sign up below to be reminded occasionally to check your sleep efficiency.
• Dr. Daniel Erichsen’s BedTyme app with personalized coaching included can help you be successful at CBTi.  It include sleep restriction therapy for insomnia.

 Assignment:

• Compact your sleep using the resources in the Links section.

 Links:

Dr. Daniel Erichsen’s BedTyme Website & App with personal coaching

Measuring Sleep Efficiency (pdf)

Compact Your Sleep (pdf)

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Recommended: Go To: Lesson 3 Website  Contact Dennis: Voice message or text: 408-990-3882 or dennis@sleeptohealthy.com

Lesson Summary:

• Definition of chronic insomnia: 3 or more nights per week of poor sleep with significant related daytime complaints for 3 months or more. You might define yours differently.
• Short term insomnia is normal.  Don’t worry about it.
• This is how you likely got insomnia: 1 – Predisposed to having sleep disturbed in your environment. 2 – Event that disturbs your sleep. (Precipitating event) 3 – Continued bad habits and detrimental thoughts and beliefs about sleep (Perpetuating events and thoughts). This causes your insomnia to continue long after the original cause is long gone. Will learn how to cure insomnia.
• Causes of predisposition & precipitatig events for insomnia: Psychological (stress, mental disorders, detrimental beliefs), Body (Sleep apnea, medical conditions, pain, alergies, aging), Chemicals (Medications, excess caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, drugs, hormone shifts), environmental (shift work, noise, heat, cold, TV, uncomfortable bed) and unknown causes.
• If you or your partner snore, it might be a serious but curable medical condition called sleep apnea and should be checked out.
• Your job is to control your causes of insomnia the best you can. Mine is to teach you how to sleep the best you can given your situation.
• Measures of sleepiness with sleep test to answer: Do I have insomnia? Epworth sleepiness Scale and Stanford Sleepiness Scale (see links).
  Sleepiness and Tired are two different things.
• The media greatly exagerates health risks of insomnia. There are no proven health risks to insomnia. It just makes you feel substandard & sleepy, you will be on edge emotionally and you will have to work harder to focus and perform well mentally. So don’t stress about your insomnia too much.
• If you want to improve your overall health and longevity, the best thing you can do is excercise.
• CBTi or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia is a drug free method but can be used while taking sleep medications or other remedies.

Assignment:

• Go through the list of causes of insomnia and see if any might apply to you.
• Brainstorm to find ways to mitigate them to the degree possible given your situation. A visit to your family doctor or health professional migth be in order.
• Look through your sleep journal and diary to see if you can spot any potential causes of your insomnia..

Links mentioned in the show:

Epworth Sleepiness Scale – American Sleep Apnea Association
Interpretation of Epworth results – Healthline.com
Stanford Sleepiness Scale – Stanford University
Root Causes of Insomnia (pdf)

 Other Thoughts:

There is a rule in science that says that measuring something changes the thing you are measuring.  For instance, if you try to measure the temperatuer of a cup of water, inserting the thermometer alters the temperature of the water slightly.

This is especially true for your brain and any social sciences.  When you try to measure the effect of sleep, you alter the measured result.

For instance, if you reduce someone’s sleep to determine the impact on memory, you have triggered several other associated events.  You change their stress level, their feeling of vulnerabily and loss of control, you change their circadian rhythm and so on.  You can never truely tease out the cause and effect when it comes to sleep.

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Recommended: Go To: Lesson 2 Website  for the complete & free “Cure Your Insomnia” course and better web experience.  Contact Dennis: Voice message or text: 408-990-3882 or dennis@sleeptohealthy.com

Summary:

• Definition of Sleep: A mental and physical state that differs from your awake condition: You are less responsive to stimulus from the environment, your thoughts are inward focused rather than focused on the world around you.  Sleep and your health.
• Sleep is an active condition: Memories are reinforced or clipped off, emotions are processed, complex tasks are reinforced, growth hormones are released and toxins in your brain flushed out.  Sleep and your brain.
• You feel and function better after a good sleep.  Sleep and your heart.
• Most benefits of sleep are to the brain, not the body. And so sleep and your health is not so important. Many things impact your well being and sleep is but one of many factors.
• Genetics decide the amount of sleep you need. Trying to get 8 hrs sleep is like inisting on a size 9 shoe because that is the average shoe size. Evaluate your sleep by how well you feel and function and how sleepy you are.
• Sleep is controled by 2 processes: Sleep pressure that builds up slowly while you are awake and your circadian rhythm which determines your alertness level and controls getting into and out of sleep.  Sleep and your brain.
• Sleep triggers such as Low light levels, calm thoughts and activities prepare your brain to switch to sleep.
• Our sleep system has evolved over millions of years and is deeply embedded and is almost impossible to “break”.
• Your brain’s prefrontal controls planning and analyzing.  It may create stressful thoughts in you that hinder sleep.
• There are 4 sleep stages: N1, N2, N3 and REM. Most sleep is N2, deep sleep is N3 and dreaming sleep is REM or Rapid Eye Movement sleep.
  It is normal to have many night time awakenings every night.

Assignment:

• Start monitoring your sleep with a sleep journal. Find one you like (see links), print it off and start using it.
• Also consider a written journal where you write out your thoughts about sleep. See the example.
• Contact Dennis with any questions or comments about this course: Voice message or text: 408-990-3882 or dennis@sleeptohealthy.com

Links:

National Sleep Foundation Simple Sleep Log

National Sleep Foundation Complete Sleep Diary

American Academy of Sleep Medicine 2 week Sleep Diary

American Psychological Association Sleep Diary

Example of written journal to record thoughts and ideas about sleep