It has now been over a year since the majority of behavioral health providers have moved to predominantly or exclusively providing therapy via telehealth. This week’s blog will examine several publications sharing initial findings about the experience of online couples therapy by providers and patients as well as some lessons learned over the past year.
Recently I consulted on a case where a client with insomnia insisted on tracking her sleep with a wearable monitor (think Fitbit or Apple Watch).She soon realized that her sleep tracker was actually increasing her anxiety about sleep. She became more aware of every toss and turn during the night. Ultimately, the client decided to forego the tracker and use only a paper sleep log each night and morning. Her anxiety decreased overnight (pun intended) and she starting falling asleep faster and staying asleep longer.
Newer research is examining not just the overall effect of treatment strategies for insomnia, but how certain approaches may produce different symptom specific effects during the course of treatment. The purpose of this blog will be to review the theory, interventions, and research findings about how these treatment approaches may produce symptom specific effects during the course of insomnia treatment.
Dr. Rita Brock recently shared her thoughts on moral distress and injury and COVID-19 frontline workers with me. Dr. Brock has spent much of her career as an academic in philosophy and religion, obtaining her doctorate in this field in 1988. Her interests turned toward moral injury after a 2009 article by Dr. Brett Litz “grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go.”
Melatonin is a hormone that is naturally found in the body. It is produced synthetically in the laboratory and is available in pill form as well as forms that can be absorbed under the tongue or through the cheek. However, before we talk about the role of melatonin in sleep, let’s talk about what it’s NOT for. So many of the patients I work with on sleep issues describe taking melatonin on a regular basis, every night before bed. Melatonin is not a sedative. It is not sleep inducing and it does not share any of the properties of prescription or over-the-counter sleep aids