Struggling to get a good night’s sleep? There’s an alternative to meds, experts say – CBC

Cognitive behavioural therapy targets the thoughts, habits and emotions that impede our sleep

Feb 23, 2025

For more than 30 years, Faye Dickieson battled the exhausting effects of insomnia. She turned to sleeping pills in an attempt to get a peaceful night’s rest, but found no relief — only its lingering side effects.

“I would just toss and turn, toss and turn,” Dickieson, who lives in Alberton, P.E.I., told The Current’s host Matt Galloway, noting she’d typically get just two hours of sleep

“I wouldn’t go back to sleep. It would just put me in a fog, and then I’d get to work, and I thought, ‘Oh God, I don’t even remember driving here.'”

One in six Canadians suffers from insomnia, according to a phone survey of 4,037 Canadian adults published last year in the journal Sleep Medicine.

The researchers found there’s an “increasing use of various medications and substances to cope with this health issue.” In particular, survey results suggested that use of medications, alcohol and cannabis for sleep is now 1.5 to two times higher than it was 16 years ago.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/insomnia-cognitive-behavioural-therapy-1.7463164