Sleep. Everyone Wants a Pill. What About a Real Cure?

Could the reason behind why so many of us turn to sleeping pills is because we believe that our sleep problems are so complicated we must need a drug to be a good sleeper?  If you've been a horrible sleeper for years with bouts of insomnia, you most likely won't believe that you can be cured with some behavioral changes.  By behavioral changes I mean...changing the way you think about sleep and practicing good sleep hygiene.  This cure often goes dismissed by hard core insomniacs as a cliche but it has been proven to turn insomniacs into robust sleepers.  Here is a excerpt from a great New York Times article on the studies comparing behavior changes and sleep medications.

The medical journal Sleep last year reported on five high-quality trials that showed cognitive behavioral therapy helped people suffering from insomnia fall asleep sooner and stay asleep longer. Another American Journal of Psychiatry analysis of 21 studies showed that behavioral treatment helped people fall asleep nearly nine minutes sooner than sleep drugs. In other measures, sleep therapy worked just as well as drugs, but without any side effects.  Read full article.

There is a way to become an expert sleeper without the drugs.  It could take a week or even a month for your sleep to be "robust" but it will be a heck of a lot cheaper and it will fix your problem instead of being just a band-aid.