Behavioral Sleep Medicine

Sleep profoundly impacts mental health. Sleep impacts your ability to regulate emotions, process stress, and use cognitive functions. Poor sleep increases irritability, anxiety, depression risk, and impairs decision-making. Improvements in sleep can lead to overall better mood, pain management, physiological health, and well-being.

Insomnia: Insomnia is the inability to sleep despite the time and ability to do so. Insomnia usually starts from an acute change and is often maintained by behavioral components and beliefs. Therefore, the front-line treatment for insomnia is therapy. Therapy can help you regain quality sleep and get you back to living your life. Even long-term sufferers of insomnia find major improvement in just weeks when engaging in Cognitive behavioral therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i).

Fatigue: Fatigue disrupts brain circuits, triggers stress hormones, and impairs emotional regulation. This can create a vicious cycle where exhaustion worsens stress, leading to anxiety, irritability, depression, brain fog, and reduced motivation, making daily tasks overwhelming and life feel helpless. This constant mental load overloads the nervous system, keeping it in a stressed "fight-or-flight" state, while also compromising cognitive functions like focus and decision-making. Therapy can help you calm your nervous system and learn behavioral skills to manage fatigue.

CPAP/BIPAP desensitization: Wearing a CPAP or BIPAP can be a daunting task. It can be hard to relax and rest with a new device on your face. It can also feel claustrophobic to place a mask over your face. Wearing your sleep device can help you sleep better, reduce migraines, and reduce risk for conditions like heart disease, stroke, and dementia. Thus, it is very important you learn to use your CPAP/BIPAP for all hours of sleep. Therapy can help you get better sleep with your mask on.

Evidence based services for coping with sleep issues include:

-Cognitive behavioral therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i): Typically ranges 6 - 8 weekly sessions.
-Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): Typically ranges 8 - 20 weekly sessions.
-Behavioral Therapy: Typically ranges 8 - 12 weekly sessions.
-Exposure Therapy: Typically ranges 12 - 20 weekly sessions.
-Mindfulness Based Therapy: Typically ranges 8 - 20 weekly sessions.

*More sessions can be added as desired and clinically appropriate.