If you want to stop taking sleeping pills or supplements, it's important to talk to your doctor and come up with an appropriate plan because taking a pill or supplement contingently will make it very hard for you to reach your goal.
First of all, it's important to mention that the most effective treatment for chronic insomnia (cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I)) is effective regardless of whether you are taking sleeping pills or not. So, you shouldn't feel pressured into quitting a medication or supplement before you start implementing CBT-I techniques.
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It can be so difficult to regain sleep confidence and get off the pills and supplements when you start taking them contingently - because, when you do this, you continue to reinforce the mistaken belief that you can't sleep without them.
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Picture this scenario - you have a good night of sleep so you decide that tonight you will not take a pill or supplement. You then start to struggle with sleep and have a bad night. The next night, you decide that you don't want to go through that again so you take a pill or supplement and you sleep.
Now you probably think you slept because of the pill or supplement when, in fact, you slept because of the sleep drive you accumulated over the previous night of poor sleep.
Sleep drive builds with every minute of wakefulness. The longer you are awake, the more likely you are to sleep. So, after a good night, sleep drive will be a bit lower - and this allows sleep-related worry and anxiety to make sleep a bit more difficult. After a hard night, sleep drive is much higher - and this can override any sleep-related worry and anxiety and generate sleep.
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Unfortunately, when you take a pill or supplement during (or after) a hard night, the sleep you get (thanks to your own natural biological sleep drive) is easily associated with the pill or supplement. In other words, you miss the opportunity to recognize that you can sleep without a pill or supplement.
This makes progress difficult.
So, if your goal is to get off the sleeping pills or supplements, talk to your doctor about a tapering-off plan or an elimination plan and stick to it. If tonight is a pill night, keep it a pill night. If tonight isn't a pill night, keep it that way!
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My name is Martin Reed and I am the founder of Insomnia Coach®. I offer sleep coaching services that give people with insomnia all the skills and support they need to enjoy better sleep for the rest of their lives. I also offer a free two-week sleep training course for people with insomnia at insomniacoach.com/sleep-train...
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Негізгі бет Why you just can't seem to get off the sleeping pills or supplements when you have insomnia
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