Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBTI)
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTI or CBT-I) is a short, structured, and evidence-based approach to combating the frustrating symptoms of insomnia.
Poor sleep patterns and insomnia can affect nearly every part of your life. Your career, your hobbies, and your relationships all suffer when you aren’t recharged and rejuvenated in the morning.
Using cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTI), Delta Sleep Coaching can help you reset your sleep™ through evidence-based methodologies and techniques.
How CBTI Works
When you sign up with Delta Sleep, you get 4-8 weeks of one-on-one coaching tailored to your specific situation, needs, and goals. An expert will personally guide you through the process and help you overcome your sleep challenges.
The main components of CBTI include:
Cognitive & Psychoeducational Interventions
Cognitive restructuring is used to help change or improve one’s thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and reactions to sleep. Inaccurate or negative thoughts around sleep are often identified, challenged, and restructured—leading to a healthier mindset for sleep.
Behavioral Interventions
Behavioral interventions implement techniques that help improve relaxation and increase sleep drive. This includes sleep restriction that helps to “reset” the body’s sleep drive or the need for sleep, relaxation training to help the body relax and unwind at the proper times, and stimulus control which is used to retrain your body and mind to sleep when it’s supposed to.
CBTI is traditionally delivered in-person, but with the rapid shift to telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as limited access to CBTI trained professionals, CBTI is now commonly delivered remotely.
Is CBTI Effective?
While CBTI is a relatively new offering, it is backed by years of clinical research and has been shown to work through extensive lab studies and analyses. [UPenn CBTI Meta Analyses and NIH CBTI Study]
In fact, CBTI is now being recommended as the first-line of care for insomnia by the National Institutes of Health, the American College of Physicians, and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
The Sleep Foundation has even stated that CBTI can be approximately 70-80% effective in those with primary insomnia, and in some cases, can be more effective than medications.
Improvements in symptoms often appear within a few weeks after starting CBTI and results are often maintained over time, unlike results found in self-help approaches. Self-guided care such as books and apps are typically not as effective due to the lack of accountability that a CBTI-trained professional provides.
CBTI as a Complimentary Improvement Process
If you’ve already been through a sleep study, use medications or sleep equipment, that’s just fine—Delta Sleep can still help you!
There are often multiple factors that worsen the symptoms of insomnia, and for many, participating in CBTI is a great way to eliminate mental obstacles in the way of a good night’s rest.
The Sleep Coaching Process
Sign Up for Sleep Coaching
Once you’ve determined that Delta Sleep Coaching is right for you, you can sign up for the program and start working towards better sleep!
Start Filling Out Daily Sleep Diaries and the Sleep Questionnaire
After signing up for the Delta Sleep Coaching Program, you will receive a daily email each morning that prompts you to fill out a sleep diary. These diaries will help your sleep coach see your daily patterns, behaviors, and concerns. These baseline sleep diaries are essential to the Delta Sleep Coaching program as your coach uses these diaries, as well as the sleep questionnaire, to create an improvement plan based on your specific sleep issues. The first week’s sleep diaries are also used as a baseline for you and your coach to see how things are progressing in the weeks ahead.
Access the Delta Sleep Coaching Learning Center
You will get immediate access to Delta Sleep Coaching’s educational videos that discuss common sleep topics and help explain the methodologies and techniques that will be used to help improve the quality of your sleep. In these videos, our founding sleep coach, Cali, talks about topics like sleep hygiene, what to do at night when you’re not sleeping, worry and sleep, sleep restriction, and more.
Schedule your first coaching call
Your first phone call with your sleep coach will happen approximately one week after signing up for the program. This one-hour phone call will be an in-depth conversation about your personal sleep issues and get you started on your tailored sleep improvement plan. Your coach will explain what changes to expect in the weeks ahead and answer any questions you may have. Follow-up phone calls will be discussed and scheduled throughout the process.
Reset Your Sleep with Delta Sleep Coaching
If you or a loved one want more information about CBTI and sleep coaching, contact Delta Sleep to get started!