EPTI wanna practice this.
From Micronesia's Insomnia Guide
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How can I begin the process of Cognitive Restructuring to help reduce my NSTs?
Well, simply by reading the guide up to this point you might already be feeling better about sleep and having reduced NSTs. Of course, this is not the best you can do. If you are truly a sufferer of insomnia then you will want to make a daily effort to recognize and replace your NSTs. NSTs are automatic so identifying them is not always easy. The program used by Gregg Jacobs for treating insomniacs involves keeping a daily journal where you record and reflect on your NSTs (you can refer to his program, but you very well might not need to; this guide's goal is to help you!). Even without use of a journal you can make a conscious effort to identify NSTs and scrutinize them until you find more positive and realistic thoughts that are more appropriate. Something I found was that each NST you replace with a positive one makes it easier to continue the process of cognitive restructuring! Here are some tips:
1) Rather than think "I don't think I can fall back to sleep" a more realistic thought might be "I always fall back to sleep sooner or later"
2) Rather than think "I'm not getting as much sleep as I need" think "I need less sleep than I thought"
3) Rather than think "I already can't get 7-8 hours of sleep" think "I'll be fine as long as I get my core sleep, and even if I miss some of that I'll be able to make it up easily. All I need is a positive attitude about my ability to manage sleep and my daytime mood will not be affected that much.
Well, simply by reading the guide up to this point you might already be feeling better about sleep and having reduced NSTs. Of course, this is not the best you can do. If you are truly a sufferer of insomnia then you will want to make a daily effort to recognize and replace your NSTs. NSTs are automatic so identifying them is not always easy. The program used by Gregg Jacobs for treating insomniacs involves keeping a daily journal where you record and reflect on your NSTs (you can refer to his program, but you very well might not need to; this guide's goal is to help you!). Even without use of a journal you can make a conscious effort to identify NSTs and scrutinize them until you find more positive and realistic thoughts that are more appropriate. Something I found was that each NST you replace with a positive one makes it easier to continue the process of cognitive restructuring! Here are some tips:
1) Rather than think "I don't think I can fall back to sleep" a more realistic thought might be "I always fall back to sleep sooner or later"
2) Rather than think "I'm not getting as much sleep as I need" think "I need less sleep than I thought"
3) Rather than think "I already can't get 7-8 hours of sleep" think "I'll be fine as long as I get my core sleep, and even if I miss some of that I'll be able to make it up easily. All I need is a positive attitude about my ability to manage sleep and my daytime mood will not be affected that much.
See how much better the world seems when you just restructure the belief? I want some practice so I just do it all the time. This is how it's gonna go: You give me some negative situation, thought, or belief. I'll give you that same thing, but make it sound good. If you can think of something better, say it.
I'll start: My student loan hasn't come in yet and I'm gonna have to scramble for money.
Remix: I'm not a crack whore. Fuck yeah
