Sleep
20 essays. Start-here picks first, then newest.
Sleep is often the first thing to change when mental health slips, and one of the first things that can be treated. Poor sleep has many causes, so the fix depends on naming the right one. These essays help you do that. They explain CBT-I, the treatment that guidelines recommend first for chronic insomnia, step by step. They cover sleep medicines and when they help, rebound insomnia during a taper, nightmares, restless legs, sleep apnea, and what a sleep study is like. Other guides are built for real lives: night shift workers, teens whose body clocks run late, children who fight bedtime, and adults over 65.
New here? Start with sleep was the first thing to change. Then read less time in bed, more consolidated sleep, which explains how CBT-I works. If you take something to sleep, or are thinking about it, read sleep medications demystified.
Looking for treatment rather than reading? Insomnia & sleep care
All Sleep essays
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Sleep Was the First Thing to Change
September 2, 2026 · 22 min read
Sleep can change before, during, or after depression or anxiety, and it can also have another cause entirely. This guide explains what the evidence supports, what else to check, and how patients and families can respond without turning one bad night into a verdict.
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Less Time in Bed, More Consolidated Sleep
September 2, 2026 · 27 min read
CBT-I can improve chronic insomnia by reducing wakefulness in bed and rebuilding the bed-sleep link. This guide explains the evidence, what early treatment can feel like, the safety checks that matter, and how to find trained care. It does not give a do-it-yourself sleep window.
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Sleep Medications Demystified: When They Help and When They Don't
November 13, 2025 · 7 min read
Sleep medicines can help during short, stressful stretches—but they work best as a short-term bridge, not a long-term fix. Here’s when they make sense, when they don’t, and why CBT-I is the first-line treatment for sleep that lasts.
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Screens, Social Media, and Sleep in Children and Teens
October 5, 2026 · 20 min read
A daily screen total can miss what matters most for sleep. What the research shows about bedtime screens and social media in children and teens, and how to match the fix to the real sleep problem.
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Four Weeks, Step by Step: Preparing for CBT-I With a Clinician
September 9, 2026 · 14 min read
CBT-I is a structured, monitored treatment for chronic insomnia, not a list of sleep tips. This guide walks through what happens in the preparation week and the four active weeks, which safety questions come first, and why the sleep window is calculated with a clinician and never from an article.
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Melatonin Is a Clock Signal, Not a Sedative
September 9, 2026 · 11 min read
Melatonin and light move the body clock, and the direction depends on when they reach the brain. This guide explains why the first question is which sleep problem you have, what product testing found in melatonin gummies, and why children, pregnancy, and seizure disorders need their own lane.
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The Nightcap, the Gummy, and the Sleep You Think You're Getting
September 9, 2026 · 10 min read
Alcohol can shorten the time it takes to fall asleep while making the rest of the night less stable, and cannabis effects change with the product, cannabinoid, route, and person. This guide explains what to record over seven nights, and the withdrawal risks that need an assessment before anything changes.
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The Same Dream, Again: Treating Nightmares
September 9, 2026 · 10 min read
A recurring nightmare can become a treatable sleep problem. This guide explains imagery rehearsal therapy and the low-detail way it can be done, where the AASM and VA/DoD guidance disagree, what prazosin evidence actually shows, and which nighttime events need medical evaluation instead.
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Your Legs Won't Let You Sleep: Restless Legs, Iron, and the Medication Trap
September 9, 2026 · 10 min read
Restless legs syndrome has a four-part pattern, and iron is checked differently here than in a routine anemia panel. This guide explains ferritin and transferrin saturation, why two specialty sources now disagree about the threshold, and how augmentation can look like the illness getting worse.
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Sleeping Against the Clock: Night Shift and Rotating Shift Work
September 9, 2026 · 10 min read
Standard sleep advice assumes daylight work. This guide starts from the real roster instead: circadian mismatch versus insomnia, protecting one sleep window with an emergency exception, what light and caffeine can and cannot do, and why the drive home is part of the plan.
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Ten Hours of Sleep and Still Exhausted
September 9, 2026 · 10 min read
Sleepiness pulls you toward sleep; fatigue empties you without the pull, and the difference changes what gets checked first. This guide sorts the causes into six lanes, explains what a sleep study and an MSLT can and cannot answer, and what to bring to the visit.
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Bedtime Is a Battle: Sleep for Ages 4 to 12
September 9, 2026 · 10 min read
Ten trips out of the bedroom can mean four different things, and they need four different responses. This guide covers the red flags that pause a behavior plan, how to match the method to the pattern, what the melatonin evidence actually says for children, and how to build a two-week observation.
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Sleep After 65: What Changed, and Which Sleep Aids to Avoid
September 9, 2026 · 10 min read
Lighter, earlier sleep can be an ordinary part of aging. Hours of distress in bed, repeated falls, or major confusion are not. This guide covers the PM aisle and anticholinergic burden, what the Beers Criteria says about benzodiazepines and Z-drugs, and how to open the visit before anything is added.
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When the Medicine Is the Sleep Problem
September 9, 2026 · 10 min read
Activating and sedating are not permanent labels, and the letters after a medicine's name change what the night looks like. This guide explains how to build a timeline a prescriber can read, how to tell akathisia from restless legs, and when a dream change becomes a safety question.
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Your Bed Learned Something. It Can Unlearn It.
September 5, 2026 · 8 min read
Stimulus control aims to change the link between bed and wakefulness, as one part of care for insomnia. Part 10 of ten in the series What CBT Actually Teaches.
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The Harder You Try, the Further It Gets
September 2, 2026 · 24 min read
Sleep can start to feel like a test when every minute and every score is watched. This guide explains what the evidence says about sleep effort, clock-watching, and tracker pressure, where that evidence is limited, and how to lower the pressure without ignoring safety or another sleep problem.
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You're Not Weak. It May Be Rebound.
September 2, 2026 · 22 min read
A bad night after a dose change may be rebound, but it may also be withdrawal, recurrence, a new sleep problem, or more than one at once. This guide explains how medicine class, CBT-I, monitoring, and prescriber coordination shape a safer plan.
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He Can't Fall Asleep. It May Not Be Defiance.
September 2, 2026 · 25 min read
A teen who cannot fall asleep until late may be facing a body-clock mismatch rather than simple defiance. This guide explains how to tell normal evening preference, too little sleep opportunity, insomnia, and delayed sleep-wake phase disorder apart, what to track, and when to seek care.
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Sleep Studies Explained
January 6, 2026 · 20 min read
A sleep study monitors your brain and body overnight to uncover hidden sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and movement disorders. Here is what these tests measure, what to expect before, during, and after, and how to get one in the United States.
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The Silent Night Struggle: Sleep Apnea's Overlooked Role in Depression
January 6, 2026 · 7 min read
Obstructive sleep apnea and depression are closely linked, and treating one can ease the other. This patient guide explains how the two conditions feed into each other, how sleep apnea is diagnosed, and what treatment and coverage options are available in the Inland Empire.