Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia - Thought Control, Thought Distraction, Paradoxical Intention

(This video is part 5 of 6: for other videos in this series about CBT for Insomnia, scroll down to the end of this blog post)

In today’s video, we’ll cover 3 different things that our actually linked closely together in my work. You might have already heard about these and even picked up tips or advice on how to deal with them but I’ll talk to you about each of these in a practical way. 

As in the last few videos on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia, I’ll talk about how I use these parts in my sleep coaching practice working with clients who want to overcome long-term insomnia and sleep problems. 

Let’s start with Thought Control which is the first part of this video.

This is something I hear from clients on a daily basis. They hope that they can somehow be in complete control of their thoughts. You might be asking how to control intrusive thoughts at night or what to do when overthinking at night. 

Being able to calm down your thoughts that might stop you from falling asleep or waking you up in the middle of the night is definitely something I teach my clients to do on a regular basis. I’m sure the way I explain a more practical approach is going to help you rethink how you approach this part of your sleep problems.

The second part of this video is all about Thought Distraction.

Practically speaking, I don’t use ‘distraction’ as a principle or a tool. Mostly because, as I explained in this video, if you simply distract your mind with something else it’s often not very effective. Once you stop doing the things that you use to distract yourself, thoughts tend to rise up again and disturb you further. That is why I don’t use thought distraction techniques in their most common ways.

But I’ll share with you the way I use this part of the CBT-I principle in a practical way that helps my clients actually calm their thoughts at night. 

The third part of today’s video is about Paradoxical Intention. 

It’s a way to deal with fear and concerns ahead of time which is the opposite of avoiding it or simply going through the experience. In a practical way, this helps you to not have so many concerns heading into bed or facing the night of struggles. The role of this is to really help you become physically, emotionally and mentally calm and relaxed no matter what happens during the day or may happen when it comes to your sleep. 

This is of course often a much more complex part of long-term sleep problems and has to be approached with some caution. You don’t want to increase fear or really unsettle a person, but to help them work through some of these so that they are better able to experience something difficult.

All of these 3 things work in different ways for different people. But this is one of those parts of my work that I enjoy because the tools, techniques, exercises and skill sets are very personalised to the individual. This in turn means that they really help you as a person for many years to come, hence these becoming Sleep Skills for Life. 

Beatrix

Part 1 of the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy video series: Practical Sleep Education - click here to watch video one

Part 2 of the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy video series: Sleep Hygiene - click here to watch video two

Part 3 of the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy video series: Practical 'Sleep Restriction' - click here to watch video three

Part 4 of the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy video series: Stimulus and Cognitive Control - click here to watch video four

Part 6 of the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy video series: How to deal with 'dysfunctional' beliefs - click here to watch video six