Getting your sleep back: the Psychotip® programme

This programme supports treatment; it does not replace it. Restricting time in bed, which is its core, produces marked sleepiness for one to two weeks: it is not advised without medical advice if you drive a great deal, if you operate machinery, if you have a history of bipolar disorder or epilepsy, during pregnancy, or if you already have significant daytime sleepiness — step 3 is devoted to this. Never change a sleeping pill on your own initiative: abrupt discontinuation causes rebound insomnia and, for some molecules, severe effects. And if you snore heavily, if breathing pauses have been observed during your sleep, or if you fall asleep during the day despite apparently normal nights, have that investigated before starting: it is probably not insomnia.

1. Before you start

You go to bed exhausted and you are wide awake the moment the light goes out. Or you fall asleep easily and open your eyes at 3.20 a.m., for good. You know your bedroom ceiling. You calculate: "if I fall asleep now, I have four hours left". You go to bed earlier to catch up, you stay in bed later at weekends, you nap when you can — and nothing improves, sometimes the opposite.

This programme is made for that situation. It applies cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, CBT-I, which is the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia in adults — recommended ahead of sleeping pills by sleep societies in Europe and in the United States.