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| Background | Review of Current Practice | Sleep Assessment | Sleep Management Tools & Techniques | Hypnotic Withdrawal Programme | Sleep Consultation | Final Assessment | Contact Us |
| Section Home → | Example sleep diaries and downloads → | Normal and abnormal sleep → | Psychological treatments for insomnia → | Self Assessment → |
| Section Home → | Elements → | Cognitive → | Behavioural → | Sleep Hygiene → | Stimulus Control → | Muscle Relaxation → | Sleep Restriction |
→ Sleep diary
→ Total sleep time (7-14 days)
→ Establish wake time
→ Calculate sleep time
→ Follow schedule 7 days a week
→ Increase sleep time by 15 minutes per week
→ This form of therapy involves reducing the amount of time in bed to the actual amount of time spent asleep, thereby creating a mild sleep deprivation, and then lengthening sleep time as sleep efficiency improves. The following could be suggested to patients:
→ Find out how much you (the patient) are actually sleeping each night by keeping a sleep diary.
→ Restrict the amount of time that you spend in bed to the time that you actually sleep each night. For example, if you spend eight hours in bed each night but you sleep for only six hours, then your allowed time in bed would be six hours. So, in this example, say you normally go to bed at 11 pm, get to sleep at 1 am, and get up at 7 am. To restrict your time in bed to six hours you may be advised to go to bed at 1 am, but still get up at 7 am.
→ Make weekly adjustments to the allowed time in bed depending on the time spent asleep.
→ When 90% of the time spent in bed is spent asleep, then the allowed time spent in bed is increased by 15 minutes by going to bed 15 minutes earlier. In the above example, you would then go to bed at a quarter to one.
→ Adjustments are made each week until you are sleeping for a longer length of time most nights.