Those with sleeping troubles can now turn to their screens for effective treatment, that is as long as they don’t do the turning in the middle of the night when the should be sleeping. The treatment is an Internet-based cognitive-behavioral therapy know as SHUTi (for “Sleep Healthy Using the Internet”) and new research documents the effectiveness of this automated approach. That’s right, automated. Therapy without a therapist has come of age, at least for insomnia.
As anyone who has struggled with sleepless nights knows, and 50% of adults do at some point, insomnia is a big problem. For 2 out of 10 adults sleeplessness is severe enough to meet criteria for an insomnia disorder. Sleeplessness has been shown to crash one’s mood, slow thinking, impair judgement, increase workplace accidents and absences while decreasing performance, and just generally ruin one’s day.