Depression Community

Did you know that insomnia is the most common symptom related to depression? Insomnia can take several forms:having difficulty initially falling asleep or staying asleep, the latter manifesting as either middle of the night or early morning awakenings. Chronic insomnia sufferers report a decreased quality of life, loss of memory functions, feeling fatigued, unable to concentrate well, and diminished interest in socializing or engaging in pleasurable activities, further increasing depressive symptoms A sleep disturbance can increase the risk for alcohol-related problems. Survey respondents who reported sleep disturbances, more than 12 years later, had twice as high a rate of alcohol-related problems.

Interventions currently in use for treating depression-related insomnia fall into two general categories: medications and psychotherapy. Self-help strategies, including hypnosis (which I discussed in my last post), are a viable option.The use of self-help techniques for enhancing sleep offers several key advantages: Self-help will not lead to either drug addiction or dependence, it can be applied under all conditions, it is a low cost intervention, and it will not lead to potentially harmful interactions with other interventions.


Here are some things you can do to improve your sleep:

1) Do your best to get on a regular sleep schedule, going to bed and waking up at roughly the same time each day. This is the most important thing you can do.

2) Avoid caffeine (coffee, sodas, chocolate).

3) Avoid alcohol. For people who are depressed or are at risk for depression, alcohol is a very bad drug.

4) Many people who suffer insomnia go to bed and then start thinking about problems, engaging in rumination. Try and re-direct your thoughts by asking what you can actually do about the problems. It's easier to learn to let go when you are clear there's nothing to be done about some things and it's easier to feel empowered if you decide to take effective action when action is possible.

5) Enhance your skills in "time-organization" in order to better separate bed-time from problem-solving time.

6) Learn "mind-clearing" relaxation strategies, especially self-hypnosis strategies of one type or another. This is can be a HUGE help. You can easily make a recording to listen to at bedtime of your own voice calmly, slowly conducting a relaxation process, perhaps describing a good vacation in detail you once took or something similarly comforting. It will help re-focus you on relaxing and make it easier to drift off to sleep and to stay asleep.