Block Building Therapies offers a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBTi) Program that is carried out by an Occupational Therapist. This program focuses on providing evidence-based cognitive, behavioural, and somatic interventions that can help clients with insomnia (difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep) improve their sleep.
The Occupational Therapist works with the client through topics in CBTi, including:
o Sleep and Insomnia Psychoeducation
- Learning about the main drivers of sleep: the Body Clock, Sleep Drive, and Arousal/Hyperarousal systems
o Cognitive Restructuring
- Changing the way we think about sleep to be more adaptive and helpful, and decrease anxiety about sleep
o Sleep Scheduling Techniques
- These strategies are about temporarily decreasing time spent in bed to improve sleep efficiency, and then gradually increasing time spent in bed to increase total sleep
o Stimulus Control Strategies
- Training the brain to associate the bed with sleep, not wakefulness, worry, anxiety or stress
o Strategies to relax the body and quiet the mind to allow the sleep drive to take over
o Sleep hygiene
- Environmental and habit tweaks to promote better sleep
For clients with sleep difficulties related to nightmares, additional content may be added to help clients proactively manage their nightmares to promote better sleep.
Typically, CBTi at Block Building Therapies will be conducted through focused and time-limited treatment, occurring over 5-6 weekly sessions. Clients will complete weekly sleep diaries to track their progress and inform how the CBTi principles will be applied.
Our CBTi Program is best suited for clients who are experiencing sleep related challenges due to diagnoses including anxiety, depression, PTSD, chronic pain, or other diagnosis that may be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Please see our brochure below for more information about our CBTi Program:
