Sleeping like a baby? NOT!

Are you still chasing the elusive Sleep Switch?

Have you been struggling with the stress and health issues that chronic insomnia brings? Research tells us that insomnia can cause many problems in health and cognition;

• Low energy
• Lack of motivation
• Attention, concentration or memory problems
• Poor performance at school or work
• Extreme mood changes
• Daytime sleepiness
• Trouble making errors at work or while driving
• Tension, headaches or stomach aches
• Frustration or worry about your sleep.

Chronic insomnia can put you at risk for major depression, and can logically lead to prescription drug dependence and overdose.

Insomnia occurs for a variety of reasons that can often be pinpointed through a survey, questionnaire or a full blown sleep study.

While the shelves of our pharmacies as well as the local health food/supplement store are crammed with sleep aids for over the counter use - to say nothing of the 100's of prescription products for sale behind the counter, the latest and greatest research is proving beyond any doubt that most insomniacs benefit from CBT, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Cognitive behavioral therapy helps you change actions or thoughts that hurt your ability to sleep well. It helps you develop habits that promote a healthy pattern of sleep.

CBT can take a variety of forms including:

Stimulus control - creating a positive stimulus triggered by tiredness opposed to the negative stimulus of the fear of tossing and turning all night.
Sleep Restriction - setting strict limits on the time you spend in bed every night, forcibly limiting the number of bed time hours only to the number of hours that you actually sleep, not the hours tossing and turning. The idea is to deprive yourself of additional non productive hours attempting to sleep, decreasing the actual number of sleep hours and increasing your overall tiredness. It's goal is to stabilize your sleep pattern and instill more sound habits.
Cognitive control and counseling for the worries and negative thoughts that can race through your mind hour after miserable hour.
Sleep Hygiene, or improving your basis sleep habits - deleting coffee from your evening routine, exercising to increase fatigue and decrease stress, stop napping at mid day - those kinds of things.
And finally, relaxation training with biofeedback. This is the area that has helped me the most over the years. It consists of techniques such as muscle relaxation, controlled breathing meditation, as well as the more tech oriented methods of biofeedback, brainwave training and audio relaxation programs.

If you are experienced with sleep audio programs, there have been extraordinary improvements in the field over the last few years. They now incorporate unique brainwave frequencies at the proper timing and in the right order to help train you to go under with the ease of a baby.

Sleeptracks.com provides you with a simple 7 question survey to determine your basic needs for an audio sleep program, while true brainwave enthusiasts can look at the amazing site from My Mind Shift to give yourself a high tech kiss goodnight on your tired little forehead.

And for those of you who love freebies (and who doesn't!) try Tranquil Sleep Now. Along with your audio sleep system you pick up 107 yes 107 free bonus gifts!