Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia

The most common cognitive-behavioral therapies for primary insomnia are: sleep hygiene education, stimulus control, sleep restriction, relaxation training, and cognitive therapy out of which stimulus control therapy is the most well validated and is considered “the gold standard” for the behavioral treatment of insomnia. In practice, most behavioral sleep medicine clinicians adopt a multicomponent approach which usually contains stimulus control, sleep restriction, and sleep hygiene therapy. Adjunctive interventions include phototherapy, relaxation therapy, and cognitive restructuring. CBT can be combined with pharmacological methods, but it has been shown more effective than medication on the long term.