Why Therapy Is the Missing Piece in Treating Insomnia

The Untold Truth About Insomnia

Every night, millions of people lie awake, staring at the ceiling, hoping tonight will be different. They’ve tried magnesium, melatonin, herbal teas, and all the “sleep hygiene” tricks that social media recommends. Yet for many, the problem persists.

Despite decades of research, one fact still hasn’t reached the public: the most effective treatment for chronic insomnia isn’t a supplement or a pill—it’s therapy.

That might sound surprising. Therapy? For sleep?

But the truth is that insomnia isn’t just a nighttime problem. It’s a learned pattern of wakefulness, stress, and overthinking that therapy can help to gently unlearn.

Why Insomnia Isn’t Just “Bad Sleep”

At its core, insomnia is not simply the absence of rest. It’s a condition of conditioned hyperarousal—a learned state where the body and mind have become wired for alertness instead of ease.

When nights of poor sleep become frequent, the brain starts to associate the bed with frustration, effort, and even fear. You might recognize the pattern: the later it gets, the more pressure you feel to sleep, and the more awake you become.

Sleep scientists like Dr. Jade Wu, author of Hello Sleep, explain that sleep is a natural process—one that happens best when we stop trying to control it. But the harder we chase it, the more elusive it becomes.

Therapy helps break this cycle by teaching the brain to trust sleep again.

Why Pills and Gadgets Aren’t Enough

Medication can provide short-term relief, but it doesn’t teach the body how to rest naturally. Over time, pills often lose effectiveness, create dependency, or mask the deeper processes that keep you awake.

Sleep trackers, supplements, and expensive mattresses can make the problem feel more “fixable,” but they often worsen the cycle of overcontrol and anxiety. As Wu notes, “The pursuit of perfect sleep is one of the surest ways to lose it.”

Therapy, in contrast, helps you change your relationship with sleep. It treats the underlying cause, not just the symptom.

The Gold Standard: CBT for Insomnia (CBT-i)

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-i) is the leading evidence-based treatment for chronic insomnia. It’s been tested in hundreds of clinical trials and shown to be more effective—and longer lasting—than medication.

But CBT-i is not about simply “thinking positive.” It’s a structured program that targets the habits, thoughts, and emotions that keep you awake.

How CBT-i Works

1. Rebuilding Sleep Associations
   Therapy helps recondition your brain so that the bed once again feels like a place of rest, not frustration. Through behavioural techniques such as stimulus control and sleep scheduling, your body learns to associate bedtime with safety and sleepiness, not struggle.

2. Calming the Cognitive Noise
   Racing thoughts are one of the biggest drivers of insomnia. CBT-i helps you challenge unhelpful beliefs like “I’ll never sleep tonight” or “Tomorrow will be a disaster.” You learn to separate from these thoughts instead of fighting them, creating room for the body to relax.

3. Resetting the Body Clock
   The therapy includes gentle strategies to reset your circadian rhythm—consistent wake times, exposure to daylight, and structured wind-down routines that re-sync your biological timing.

4. Reducing Sleep Anxiety
   Many clients come to therapy with intense fear around bedtime. CBT-i addresses this through gradual exposure and acceptance-based approaches, helping you unlearn the fear of being awake.

Over several weeks, this process teaches your body and mind to rest naturally again—without the nightly struggle.

Adding Depth with ACT: The Acceptance Approach

In my own practice, I often integrate principles from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), described beautifully by psychologist Russ Harris in The Reality Slap.

ACT deepens the work of CBT-i by addressing the emotional layers beneath sleeplessness—perfectionism, control, anxiety, and self-criticism.

Instead of trying to eliminate wakefulness, ACT teaches you to make space for it. When your mind races or your body feels tense, the goal isn’t to fight those sensations but to allow them with gentleness and curiosity.

This approach helps transform the nighttime struggle into something more compassionate and workable. You learn that wakefulness is not your enemy—it’s simply your body’s way of saying, “I’m alert right now.”

With practice, this shift from control to acceptance often leads to a profound paradox: when you stop trying to force sleep, it finally comes.

The Psychology of Letting Go

Both CBT-i and ACT teach an important truth: you cannot force rest, but you can create the conditions for it to arrive.

That means learning how to calm your nervous system, observe your thoughts without judgment, and allow the natural rhythm of sleep to return.

One simple exercise comes from Harris’s “Caring Hand” technique. When frustration builds in the middle of the night, gently place a hand over your chest and take a slow breath. Instead of saying, “I need to sleep,” try saying, “It’s okay that I’m awake right now.”

This small act of kindness begins to retrain your brain’s association with wakefulness. You’re no longer in a fight. You’re in relationship—with your body, with your emotions, and with the moment.

Over time, that relationship becomes the foundation of lasting rest.

Why Therapy for Insomnia Is Still Overlooked

Despite decades of solid evidence, therapy remains one of the most underused treatments for insomnia. Here’s why:

1. Sleep Is Still Seen as a Lifestyle Problem
   Many people think of sleep as something to optimize, not something to heal. Social media promotes “sleep hacks,” but rarely mentions therapy as a medical intervention.

2. Medication Is Easier to Access
   Doctors often have limited time and few referral options for behavioural sleep therapy. Prescribing a pill is quicker than explaining a therapeutic process.

3. Therapy Has a PR Problem
   People assume therapy is only for emotional issues like depression or trauma. But in reality, insomnia is an emotional and behavioural condition, and therapy is its most effective treatment.

4. Sleep Struggles Carry Shame
   Many people feel embarrassed about not being able to do something “natural.” This silence keeps them from seeking help.

5. The Allure of Quick Fixes
   The market for sleep aids is massive because it promises instant relief. But true recovery requires patience, self-awareness, and gentle persistence.

It’s time for that to change.

Beyond Sleep: The Deeper Lessons Therapy Offers

Something remarkable happens when people go through insomnia therapy. They often discover that the work they do to sleep better ripples into every part of their life.

Here’s what clients often report:

• Less anxiety and greater emotional flexibility

• Improved concentration and energy

• Better boundaries with work and technology

• More compassion toward themselves and their bodies

• A renewed sense of control, not through effort, but through understanding

In short, therapy for insomnia teaches life skills—how to accept uncertainty, slow down, and let go of unnecessary struggle. These are not just sleep skills. They are living skills.

A Real Example: When Sleep Returns Naturally

A client I’ll call Sarah came to therapy exhausted and frustrated. She had read every article, tried every supplement, and still spent hours awake each night.

Through CBT-i, we identified the “performance mindset” she had built around sleep—the belief that rest was something to achieve.

In session, we practiced small shifts: getting out of bed when frustration rose, journaling without judgment, and ending the day with compassion rather than pressure.

Six weeks later, she said something that captured the essence of the process:

“I stopped trying to earn sleep. I started letting it find me.”

Sarah’s nights improved, but more importantly, so did her relationship with herself.

Why Therapy Works: Safety and Surrender

Both sleep and therapy depend on two ingredients: safety and surrender.

We can only fall asleep when the body feels safe enough to let go. Therapy creates that same environment of safety during the day—helping the nervous system unlearn its constant vigilance.

As clients experience this safety in session, their bodies begin to carry it into the night. The need to fight or perform fades. What remains is trust.

Bringing It All Together

If insomnia has taken over your nights, know this: your body still remembers how to sleep. It’s simply forgotten how to feel safe enough to do it.

Therapy helps you rediscover that safety. It teaches you to step out of the nightly struggle, to meet wakefulness with patience, and to rebuild confidence in your natural rhythms.

It’s not a quick fix—but it’s a lasting one.

Final Thoughts: Sleep as a Teacher

Sleep has a way of revealing our deeper patterns—control, fear, perfectionism, self-judgment. Working through insomnia in therapy becomes an unexpected journey toward self-understanding.

In learning to rest, we learn to trust. In learning to let go, we learn to live more fully.

For many, the journey to better sleep begins not in the bedroom, but in the therapy room.

If You’re Ready to Start Sleeping Again

At Thompson Psychotherapy & Counselling, I offer CBT for Insomnia (CBT-i) and ACT-based approaches that help adults rebuild healthy, restorative sleep. Sessions are available in-person in Abbotsford or Langley, and online across British Columbia and much of Canada.

You don’t need to live in constant fatigue or frustration. Rest is closer than you think.

Book a free consultation today and take the first step toward peaceful, natural sleep.