Written and reviewed by a Registered Clinical Counsellor
Guides to Sleep, Insomnia, and CBT-I
A collection of guides and articles that give you the closest thing you can get to doing CBT-I, without actually doing CBT-I.
Graeme Thompson, RCC ·MA Counselling Psychology ·CBT-I Certified ·BCACC #21951
- Registered Clinical Counsellor
- Written for British Columbia
- Primary sources linked
- No affiliate links, ever
Caffeine blocks adenosine and degrades sleep quality. Here's how that plays out differently for people with chronic insomnia, and why the standard advice misses the bigger picture.
Here's what to expect in your first CBT-I session: sleep history, treatment planning, next steps and sleep tracking.
Sleeping pills are approved in Canada for seven to ten days, yet many
prescriptions run for years. This post covers what the head-to-head trials of
CBT-I and sleep medication show at follow-up, why as-needed dosing can make insomnia harder to shift, and how a supervised taper works alongside treatment.
At 3 AM, your brain is not known for its nuanced interpretation of clinical research. Most articles about the long-term impact of insomnia lump together two very different experiences: chronic insomnia and chronic sleep deprivation. That distinction changes what you need to worry about, what you don't, and what kind of help will actually make a difference.
Most people with chronic insomnia aren't just tired, they're in a quiet war with a part of themselves. Your sleep mindset might be what's keeping the cycle going.
Exercise improves sleep quality, but more isn't always better. A 2025 analysis of 86 trials explains the right dose, type, and timeline for insomnia.
You're tired — but your shoulders are up near your ears and your jaw is clenched around nothing. PMR works by tensing first. Here's the clinical protocol, step by step.
The lights go off and your mind turns on. Not winding down — planning, replaying, rehearsing. Here's why guided imagery works for insomnia, and exactly how to practise it.
Up to 80% of cannabis users cite sleep as a primary reason for use. The neuroscience is more complicated than that number suggests — and the gap between what people report and what their sleep actually looks like is one of the more interesting puzzles in sleep medicine right now.
Insomnia is the one condition where the standard cultural advice — try harder, optimize more, add another protocol to your stack — reliably makes things worse. People who have spent years adding to their wind-down routine are not failing at sleep because they haven't tried enough. The trying itself is the wakefulness.
Two BC psychiatrists say the province is failing people with insomnia. CBT-I is the recommended treatment — and you don't need a referral to access it.
Healthcare workers, first responders, teachers, and managers face some of the highest insomnia rates of any occupations in Canada. Here's why certain jobs create sleep problems, and why CBT-I is the treatment that actually addresses them.