Research says: To cure insomnia, don’t go to bed at SLEEP Online Magazine - The SLEEP Blog - All about SLEEP, SLEEPING, and SLEEPINESS

Research says: To cure insomnia, don’t go to bed

Published by Lilian May 29th, 2007 in Health Issues, How to sleep better, SLEEP News, Sleep Disorders.

Now, they are telling us, insomniacs should not even try getting sleep. It may sound like an advice that absolutely makes no sense, at first. But if you understand the rationale behind it, it doesn’t seem farfetched.

The whole report is over here and the research was spearheaded by Glasgow Sleep Centre at Glasgow University. The center admits hundreds of patients with sleep disorders yearly.

In relation to the research on insomnia, the director, Professor Colin Espie said:

“These kind of effects [not forcing sleep] are at least as good or better than a sleeping pill when it is working at its best.” He explained the programme worked by helping people allow sleep to occur naturally again.
Professor Espie said: “What a good sleeper is often doing is resisting sleep and allowing it to be something that overtakes them, whereas bad sleepers try to evoke sleep, which encourages it to go away.”

So, the next time you find no relief in other methods that supposedly helps your insomnia, do the opposite and let sleep take over naturally.