Welcome to Sleep Good Night.
Whether you are here because you want to sleep better, want to learn how to beat insomnia on your own, or because you are looking for a bit of extra help through sleep coaching – welcome. There is no shortage on the internet of “top 10” tips for better sleep, “proven” tips, “simple” tricks, “natural remedies”, etc. Believe me, I’ve come across a hundred or more of these guides over the years, and chances are, you have read and tried many of these tips before too. And, well, they probably didn’t help all that much, or else you’d be spending your well-rested awake time doing something more fun than visiting this site.
I created this site because I wanted to approach giving “helpful sleep tips” differently. I wanted to cut through the noise out there on the internet by offering simple and practical tips based primarily on this clinically sound, evidence-based approach: the gold standard in non-medication-based insomnia treatment also known as CBT-I (or, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia).
Don’t get scared by those two words if you’re unfamiliar with them. I find it pretty common for people to have had insomnia for many years before realizing they had it, being formally diagnosed with it, or even learning what the term means. Insomnia is a clinical word that simply means: difficulty falling asleep and/or staying asleep, which happens 3+ nights a week and causes daytime sleepiness or other issues, and which has been going on for 3+ months. Not too complicated, right?
Most people who reach the point of seeking help from their doctor for their sleep problems will immediately get prescribed a sleep medication. Which is a shame because there exists a non-medication approach that is proven to be more effective in the long term than medications and which is recommended as the first-line treatment for insomnia by a huge consensus of medical bodies – you guessed it, CBT-I! Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia starts with understanding how sleep is regulated and how insomnia forms and then applies behavioral (and cognitive) techniques to help you get un-stuck from a pattern of poor sleep.
There is a well-documented mismatch between number of people suffering from insomnia and the number of trained professionals offering CBT-I to treat insomnia. This site aims to help with this gap by offering free tips, guides, resources, and ramblings from an actual practitioner treating clients using CBT-I (in my day job). And, if you’d like standalone adult sleep coaching sessions for more individualized consultation and guidance (not actual treatment with me), I’d be happy to help and my rates are very reasonable. But I hope you will see that the goal of this site is primarily to provide education and value in the area of improving your sleep, not to push my services.
The brilliant thing about the CBT-I approach is that if you follow it, it just works. For most people with a mild or uncomplicated insomnia problem, following the protocols (or guidelines or tips, whatever you want to call them) will result in their bodies responding in a predictable way to reach the desired outcome of better sleep. They don’t really even need to meet with an insomnia specialist like me. And in fact, there are plenty of books out there that will teach you the methods and walk you through it. A lot of information on the internet as well, if you look in the right places. And in recent years, even apps and online-based programs that deliver the intervention from the comfort of your home, with reportedly clinically significant results. So, if want to learn more about how to treat your sleep problems on your own using the best evidence-based approach, you’ve come to the right place. If you feel your sleep problems are more than mild, or you think they may be complicated by factors such as breathing issues/snoring, mental health issues, or other medical disorders, this is probably not the place to start, and I think you’d better go to your doctor first.
Thanks for visiting, and I hope this site can be a helpful part of your journey to get better sleep.
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