Are you tired, or are you sleepy?

We use those terms interchangeably, but they actually mean really different things. And the difference matters because it determines what you should do.

A common question that arises in therapy is, "How and when should I stop taking my sleep aid?" As a member of the Society for Behavioral Sleep Medicine, I consulted with experienced colleagues early in my career to gather insights on this crucial topic. This post synthesizes their valuable advice.

As a CBT therapist in Austin, I encounter client after client who struggles with rumination. It cuts across all of my specialties. When I discuss this concept with people I’m working with, this is how I like to explain it.

I was interviewed as a sleep specialist in Austin on a podcast called Warrior Forward. The podcast focuses on women’s health and self-care. The host has herself dealt with insomnia for over a decade and shares a little of her experience. I give a session-by-session overview of what CBT-I with me looks like.

I offer this sleep hack: spend less time in bed. That’s right. Less.

Less?! How am I going to get sleep if I’m not in bed?

People with insomnia are usually problem solvers by nature. So, of course, they apply that problem-solving prowess to their sleep issue. The thinking is to maximize time spent in bed and cast a big, wide net to increase the probability of catching some sleep. It makes some logical sense. But it doesn’t work.

As a provider of Radically Open DBT in Austin, I treat something called maladaptive overcontrol. You’ve probably never heard that term; it’s not really in the zeitgeist. But it describes a lot of people. In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Most therapists (myself included) are overcontrolled. If you have an advanced degree and/or have achieved any level of career success, you are most likely overcontrolled.

Seniors are especially prone to sleep issues. Biological transitions, like the advancing of the circadian rhythm, and social transitions, like retirement, set the stage for disrupted sleep. Reach out today to talk to a sleep specialist in Austin with experience meeting the sleep needs of older adults.

Pain is a danger signal generated in the brain. We feel pain to protect us from future tissue damage. The whole function of pain is to alert you to a problem.

How does pain work?

1. Sensory receptors send messages through nerve fibers to the spinal cord, where the sensations are registered

2. These messages then go on to the brain where they are perceived

Some people find they sleep better if they flip around and out their head at the foot of the bed. Why does this work? An Austin sleep specialist explains more.

Plenty of folks who can’t sleep turn to melatonin. Most people think of it as a sleep aid but they generally don’t find it effective for insomnia. An Austin sleep therapist break it down.

In our culture, self-control is generally praised and associated with success. The thinking is that you can’t have too much self-control. Further, deficits in self-control, like substance abuse, binge eating, or financial difficulties, are often what bring people into therapy. So…more self-control is always better, right? Not so fast, acording to a Radically Open DBT therapist in Austin. 

I am very often asked, by clients and therapists alike, to explain the difference between Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RODBT). RODBT spun off of DBT but is actually pretty different from the modality that birthed it.