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Page 14
| Negative Conditioning and Negative Associations |
| Another common cause of insomnia is the way people respond to their inability to sleep. After not sleeping well for several days, many people become worried, frustrated or depressed. This causes them to place added psychological pressure on themselves to sleep. This leads to increased anxiety at bedtime, which further interferes with sleep. In no time at all, a vicious cycle of "failure-worry-more failure-more worry" develops. Once established, this failure pattern becomes self-perpetuating. It can be reversed, however, by following some of the guidelines discussed in this book. |
| In addition, insomnia-maintaining behaviors, such as staying in bed too long when you can't sleep, can also aggravate the problem. So can performance anxiety, where the more you try to make yourself fall asleep, or the more you worry about achieving your goal, the less you are able to relax. These "secondary" causes of insomnia are very important to recognize. One good clue is that you sleep very well in places or at times that you don't normally associate with sleep. For example, you may sleep well on vacation or at a friend's home. You may have no trouble taking unplanned naps at home, while trying to sleep at bedtime is often unsuccessful. |
| Bad Sleep Habits |
| Some conditioned responses lead to bad sleep habits. These include: |
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