Qaseem A, Kansagara D, Forciea MA, Cooke M, Denberg TD.Clinical practice guideline for the pharmacologic treatment of chronic insomnia in adults: An American Academy of Sleep Medicine clinical practice guideline. Sateia M, Buysse DJ, Krystal AD, Neubauer DN, Heald JL.

This involves gradually lowering your dosage over multiple weeks in collaboration with your prescribing clinician while implementing CBT-I skills. Depending on your treatment goals, it’s often possible to significantly reduce or eliminate your use of sleep medication during CBT-I treatment. If you’re currently taking sleep medication, you can continue taking these medications during CBT-I treatment. CBT-I has demonstrated greater long-term improvements in insomnia compared to a variety of sleep medications, including Ambien, Imovane, and Sonata, with no concern for side effects like dizziness, headache, daytime sleepiness, and re-emergence of insomnia when sleep medications are discontinued. CBT-I is a multi-component, individualized treatment involving daily monitoring of your sleep-wake pattern using a sleep log, targeting specific patterns of behavior that are maintaining your insomnia disorder, and refining treatment until you’re able to regularly fall asleep and stay asleep without difficulty.

What is the most effective treatment for insomnia? Science-based Skills.Īlthough sleep medications can effectively manage insomnia for days or weeks due to life stressors, they're not recommended to treat insomnia lasting 3 months or longer.īased on over 50 years of experimental evidence, the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommend Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) as the most effective treatment option for chronic insomnia disorder in adults.

Severe insomnia treatment options