Coaching practices for Sleep Restriction Therapy for My Teenager

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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • My instinct with insomnia has always been to go to bed earlier and give myself more hours to catch the sleep
  • My sleep has finally started consolidating on the tight window and now I’m tempted to grab back a big chunk of time the first decent night I get
  • I’m in the brutal first stretch of cutting my time in bed and the daytime exhaustion is almost unbearable
  • I lie in bed for eight or nine hours and only actually sleep five of them, and the rest is just me staring at the ceiling
  • The moment I get into bed my brain flips on

Practices that may help

  1. Sleep Restriction Therapy
    Arthur Spielman’s sleep restriction therapy deliberately limits time in bed to match actual sleep time, building homeostatic pressure until the sleep drive overpowers the arousal that sustains insomnia. It is one of the most effective components of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), with strong RCT support, though it requires tolerating increased daytime sleepiness for one to two weeks and is not appropriate without guidance for people with bipolar disorder, seizure history, or certain other conditions.
  2. Set a restricted sleep window equal to your actual sleep time
    Limit time in bed to approximately your average actual sleep time — this is the restriction that starts the cure.
    Sleep Restriction Therapy
  3. Expand the sleep window by fifteen minutes when efficiency improves
    Once sleep efficiency exceeds 85–90% for a week, add fifteen minutes to the window — then repeat.
    Sleep Restriction Therapy
  4. Manage daytime sleepiness during the restriction phase
    Use strategic caffeine and brief naps to function safely during the first two weeks — without undermining the restriction.
    Sleep Restriction Therapy
  5. Calculate your sleep efficiency before starting
    Track your actual sleep time versus time in bed for one week — the gap is the starting point for restriction.
    Sleep Restriction Therapy
  6. Pair sleep restriction with stimulus control
    Use the restricted window only for sleep — not reading, screens, or lying awake — to re-pair the bed with sleepiness.
    Sleep Restriction Therapy
  7. Challenge the beliefs that make insomnia self-perpetuating
    Identify and revise the catastrophic beliefs about sleep that amplify arousal at bedtime.
    Sleep Restriction Therapy
  8. Sleep restriction therapy
    Temporarily compress your time in bed to match how much you actually sleep, then expand it as efficiency improves.
    CBT for Insomnia (CBT-I), Made Practical
  9. Extend sleep before an anticipated shortfall
    Sleep longer — 9–10 hours if you can tolerate it — for several nights before a period of known sleep restriction.
    Sleep Banking: Building a Buffer Before Sleep Loss
  10. Avoid daytime naps when treating insomnia
    If you are using sleep restriction therapy or struggling with nighttime insomnia, daytime napping undercuts the treatment.
    The Power Nap: Science and Practice

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