To Beat Insomnia, Try Therapy For The Underlying Cause Instead Of Pills [NPR.org]

Lots of people say they have trouble sleeping. And 1 in 10 Americans has chronic insomnia.

Most often, sleep disorders are treated with medication. Between 6 and 10 percent of adults in the U.S. use sleeping pills.

But a review of the medical evidence has found that therapy might help people with chronic sleep troubles just as much — or even more — than pills.

Evidence that cognitive behavioral therapy — a form of talk therapy that focuses on changing how a person reacts to specific situations — can help people with chronically bad sleep has been growing over the past decade, says Dr. David Cunnington, director of the Melbourne Sleep Disorders Centre in Australia and the senior author of the recent study.

[For more of this story, written by Maanvi Singh, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/he...use-instead-of-pills]