A lot of times when you’re in bed and unable to sleep, your brain is going to want to entertain itself.

CBTMI is a short-term technique delivered over 4 - 6 sessions that includes sleep education, sleep restriction, stimulus control, and cognitive restructuring.įor CBTi, we focus on how thoughts interfere with sleep. Negative thinking may keep a person trapped in an unhealthy sleep cycle. ‍ Can you describe Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Menopausal Insomnia (CBTMI) and why it’s so effective in treating insomnia?Ĭognitive Behavioral Therapy for Menopausal Insomnia is centered upon the idea that your thoughts – both helpful and unhelpful-impact your physical and emotional well-being. There is a connection between insomnia and clinical depression and anxiety. While the transition is a natural thing, the symptoms can leave people feeling as if there’s something wrong with them, as if they’re a bit “crazy” or not in control. We don’t talk enough about menopause and its impact on mental health. Insomnia clearly impacts our patience and ability to handle frustration-it’s not a fun place to be. In basic terms, many nights of disrupted sleep can put a person in a weakened place mentally. Just by treating sleep issues, improvements in mood are seen. In studies with people with both clinical depression and insomnia, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTi) has beneficial effects for both conditions. There is a deeply circular connection between mood disorders and sleep issues. And we also know that sleep deprivation can lead to significant changes in mood. With clinical depression and anxiety issues, changes in one’s sleep–whether they’re sleeping too much or too little – are a symptom. ‍ Is there a connection between insomnia and mental health? Many with insomnia report memory issues and a loss of the ability to think clearly. It’s not unusual for people who suffer from insomnia to feel less patient, more muddled, and short-tempered. To meet the DSM-V diagnostic criteria for an insomnia disorder, these difficulties must be present for a minimum of three months and cause daytime impairment, such as negatively impacting one’s functioning at work, increasing levels of fatigue, diminished social functioning, and mood changes. Insomnia is a clinical disorder characterized as difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking too early. ‍ How does insomnia impact women throughout the daytime? Changes in hormones can certainly bring on insomnia, but it’s one’s reaction to not getting sleep that may habituate insomnia. It’s these stressors, combined with the hormonal changes, that make menopausal insomnia complicated. There are psychosocial factors to weave in as Sandwich Generation women in their mid-forties to early-fifties feel considerable stress raising their children while caring for their aging parents while working demanding careers. There are so many factors that insomnia experts often call it the Menopause Puzzle as there is a tangle of things to consider such as the effects of aging or a person’s individual medical issues. The fluctuation in hormones is one of the reasons women experience insomnia but not the only one. Perimenopausal and postmenopausal women are up to two times more likely to report sleep issues than non-menopausal women. ‍ Fifty percent of perimenopausal women experience insomnia. Sara Nowakowski, a leading expert on cognitive behavioral therapy for menopausal insomnia (CBTMI), to answer our questions about why so many women struggle with sleep during perimenopause.

Menopause and insomnia help