If you’ve been reaching for sleeping pills to treat your insomnia, you may want to rethink your approach. You may find them helpful in the short term; however, these medications may not prove useful in the long run if a more serious issue is the reason for your lack of sleep. Instead of continuing to spend your money on products that are not as effective, read on to learn about another solution – one that offers long-lasting results.
Why Should You Not Treat Insomnia with Sleeping Pills?
There are a few reasons you should stop relying on sleeping pills to help you combat your insomnia. Although they may be helpful initially, they can become a problem if you’re not careful. These medications:
- Are not designed for long-term use in most cases
- Can cause serious side effects, like withdrawal symptoms, dependence, amnesia, and thoughts of potential self-harm
- Can cause drowsiness when driving or while doing other important tasks (i.e., working)
What is a Better Alternative for Treating Insomnia?
Instead of turning to medication, a sleep dentist may suggest cognitive behavioral sleep therapy (CBT-I). Recommended by the American College of Physicians, this form of treatment focuses on connecting the dots between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors so that you can better understand why you struggle with insomnia in the first place.
With CBT-I, you must meet with a licensed therapist who can help identify three distinct components: cognitive, behavioral, and educational.
- The cognitive component is designed to help you change the way you think about sleep.
- The behavioral component is designed to formulate different techniques and stimuli to establish healthier habits so that you can better prepare for sleep. You may be encouraged to avoid naps, stop smoking, establish relaxation methods, stop drinking alcohol, or change your sleep environment to promote better rest.
- The educational component is designed to help you understand how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors connect to your sleep and ultimately, why you have insomnia.
By choosing this method of treatment, you will not only learn how to overcome your insomnia, but you’ll also recognize and be able to address other potential symptoms (i.e., depression), as well as put you one step closer to reaching your ultimate goals (i.e., less daytime fatigue, eliminating medication, etc.).
Don’t continue to just treat your symptoms. With CBT-I, you can get to the root cause of your insomnia and make changes that will improve your quality of sleep and life.
About the Practice
At Star Sleep & Wellness in Frisco, our specialists don’t believe in simply addressing the symptoms of poor sleep. We want to help our patients identify the underlying issue so that long-term success is achieved. When it comes to insomnia, you can remain confident that our approach in using CBT-I instead of sleeping pills is a safe and effective way to improve patients’ sleep over time. If you need help falling asleep, contact us to schedule a consultation today.