Although there is reason for optimism about some of the newer medications for insomnia (orexin antagonists) that are coming to market, it remains true that sleeping medications are not the right answer for many people with insomnia. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTi) has several advantages as an initial treatment. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia First We have been writing …
Sleepio CBTi for Insomnia
Sleepio is a six-session sleep improvement program, created by sleep expert Professor Colin Espie and featuring proven Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques. We are happy to add this treatment option to the list of state of the art therapies available at Gateway Psychiatric. For more information about CBT for insomnia and online programs to help improve sleep please read this …
Supercharge Your Circadian Rhythms
Why a post about how to supercharge your circadian rhythms? The fact is that for a lot of us our bodies and our brains have a hard time adapting to modern life and the result is poor quality sleep, daytime fatigue, and, for some, depression. What Are Circadian Rhythms? Circadian rhythms are what allow your body to go from vigorous …
Delayed Circadian Rhythms
Delayed circadian rhythms occur in a condition known as delayed sleep-wake phase disorder (DSWPD). This condition needs to be distinguished from disrupted circadian rhythms, a condition in which there are no strong circadian rhythms and therefore it’s hard for people to fall asleep, and when they do fall asleep they tend to have fragmented or light sleep. People with delayed …
Insomnia Relief
How to find insomnia relief is a question that many people we work with struggle with. A recent editorial in JAMA Psychiatry and the accompanying research article suggests that the online program that we’ve been recommending to our patients for years (SHUTi) is the treatment of choice for insomnia. We have been extremely pleased with the results from this program which can …
Chronic Insomnia Best Treatments
Chronic Insomnia – What are the Best Treatments? The American College of Physicians just published guidelines on the treatment of chronic insomnia. These guidelines were based on a comprehensive review of the literature. They note that chronic insomnia is very common, but the literature on treatment is relatively poor. Many treatments that are used do not have good evidence …
Benzodiazepines and Dementia
High use of benzodiazepines is not associated with an increased risk for dementia or Alzheimer’s disease according to a large prospective study published in the British Medical Journal. Previous research had suggested that there might be a link and we all know that single doses of benzodiazepines impair cognition and memory so it made sense that there might be such …
Do We Need 8 Hours of Sleep?
A recently published study that looked at patterns of sleep in three different hunter gatherer societies challenges the long-held notion that we all need to sleep 8 to 9 hours a night and that many of us in Western society are chronically sleep deprived. The results are summarized in an article we just published in our companion website MoodSurfing.com. Tantalizing …
Treatment of Fatigue in Patients with Depression or Bipolar
Treatment of depression in patients with depression or bipolar is often complicated. If medications are prescribed, will they make mood symptoms worse, or have other significant adverse effects? And yet fatigue is common in people with a history of depression (it occurs in up to 10% of the general population and is much more common in women, who have a …
New Drug with New Mechanism for Insomnia – Suvorexant
Belsomra (suvorexant) was approved earlier this week by the FDA for use as needed to treat difficulty in falling and staying asleep. The drug blocks receptors for orexin – also known as hypocretin – the master hypothalamic regulator of the sleep-wake cycle. There are, in fact, two forms of orexin, A and B; hence it is a dual orexin …