Coaching practices for Solution Focused Brief Therapy Building on What Works Before Bed

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Solution Focused Brief Therapy Building on What Works Before Bed, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

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

• All day my attention goes straight to what went wrong
• The second my head hits the pillow my mind starts up
• It feels like this is just how I am
• I can feel myself starting to slide
• I know everything I want to get away from, but if you asked me what "better" actually looks like

Practices that may help

1. Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
   Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT), developed by Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, directs attention to what already works — client strengths, past successes, and desired futures — rather than to analyzing problems. Meta-analyses report small-to-moderate positive effects across a range of presenting issues, with particular strength in behavioral problems and depression in adult populations.
2. The Formula First-Session Task and Between-Session Noticing
   Assign between-session observation tasks that direct attention toward what’s already working.
   Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
3. Schedule a worry time earlier in the day
   Contain bedtime worry by giving anxious thoughts a specific earlier window, then postponing them at night.
   CBT for Insomnia (CBT-I), Made Practical
4. Exception Finding: When Is the Problem Already Less Severe?
   Identify times when the problem was absent or less severe — these are evidence that solutions already exist.
   Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
5. Action plans for low mood: if-then plans for the early warning signs
   Build a specific "if mood dips to X, I will do Y" plan before mood declines so it is ready when needed.
   Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Made Practical
6. Preferred Future: Describing Life When the Problem Is Solved
   Ask the person to describe in concrete, behavioral detail what life looks like when things are better.
   Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
7. The Pre-Sleep Worry Buffer
   Use a 10-minute afternoon or early evening worry review to protect sleep from nighttime rumination.
   Worry Time: Containing Anxiety With Scheduled Worry
8. Offload cognitive load with a bedtime worry journal
   Write tomorrow’s to-do list and any intrusive worries before bed — externalized thoughts stop competing for attention at sleep onset.
   The Wind-Down Routine: Engineering Your Path to Sleep
9. Use sleep hygiene as the foundation, not the cure
   Get the basics right (light, caffeine, temperature, schedule) but do not expect them alone to fix insomnia.
   CBT for Insomnia (CBT-I), Made Practical
10. Anchor the wind-down with a consistent starting cue
    A repeated pre-sleep ritual — a specific tea, a book, a certain playlist — becomes a conditioned cue that induces sleepiness over time.
    The Wind-Down Routine: Engineering Your Path to Sleep

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