ACT for insomnia & sleep difficulties
Strategies to address cognitive & behavioural factors inhibiting sleep
Struggling with sleep often becomes a vicious cycle with fear of sleeplessness and pressure to sleep fuelling behaviours that worsen insomnia. Add to this a storm of racing thoughts and contradictory advice, and it’s no wonder so many feel stuck.
This workshop looks at supporting our client to break this cycle by addressing the cognitive traps and emotional stressors that sabotage sleep. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) helps tackle sleeplessness by teaching client’s mindfulness strategies and thought defusion techniques to address racing minds and decrease pressure to sleep. It encourages value-based actions and present-moment awareness, breaking cycles of hyperarousal and unhelpful behaviours that perpetuate insomnia.
Background to the workshop
One key difficulty that gets in the way of our sleep is the pressure to go to sleep. Many experience an associated fear of what might happen should they not sleep well. So how do we help people with a healthy desire to protect their sleep and well-being yet who continue to have sleep difficulties?
Besides the cognitive binds we find ourselves in, we’re faced with a myriad of confusing messages. What should and shouldn’t we do if we have insomnia? The fear of sleeplessness and the increased pressure to sleep can contribute to us engaging in behaviours which do, in fact, get in the way of improving our sleep patterns.
Many clients refer to a ‘racing mind’ they experience when trying to fall asleep, and which becomes more prominent when they wake up during the night or the early hours of the morning. This racing mind is difficult to shift with traditional cognitive strategies.
What you will gain from this workshop
This is a practical skills focused workshop that will help you assist your clients experiencing sleep problems
By the end of this workshop, participants will:
- Understand how insomnia can take root and develop into a chronic issue.
- Explore the relationship between insomnia and the ACT hexaflex model.
- Help clients recognise how engagement with thoughts can interfere with sleep.
- Guide clients in addressing a ‘racing mind’ using ACT strategies like thought defusion.
- Support clients in reducing the pressure they feel to sleep.
- Examine how perspective-taking and present-moment awareness play a role in insomnia.
- Identify barriers to behaviour change and explore any reinforcing ‘payoffs’ that maintain sleep difficulties.
- Learn how to adapt CBT for Insomnia (CBT-I) techniques to align with ACT principles.
- Help clients decide whether to stay in bed or get up when struggling to sleep.
- Assist clients in identifying their values and planning meaningful behaviour changes.
- Use mindfulness and present-moment strategies to break the cycle of thought engagement, hyperarousal, and insomnia.
About this workshop
In this workshop, you will learn the main techniques and strategies to help your clients through a variety of methods including
- Teaching sessions explaining sleep science.
- Case examples.
- Interactive discussions.
- Experiential exercises.
Who will benefit from this workshop?
Meant for practitioners who have little to no previous experience training in ACT and cognitive behavioural work for sleep difficulties, we recommend this workshop for mental health professionals including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurse practitioners and mental health counsellors.
APA psychologists: This program is sponsored by Contextual Consulting and is approved for 6 CE credits for psychologists.
Nationally certified counselors: This workshop is available for 6 credit hours. Contextual Consulting Ltd. has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7578.
To find out more, including attendance requirements and how to access your certificate, go to our continuing education information page.
If you have disability and require adjustments or accommodation, please email us at admin@contextualconsulting.co.uk to discuss your needs and we will do our best to help you.
Booking cancellation
The registration fee will be refunded minus a administration charge if cancellations are received at least two weeks before the workshop date.
Cancellations within two weeks of the event date are charged the full registration fee, other than in exceptional circumstances that can be verified.
Event cancellation
In the event of cancellation of the course outside of our control we will not be held accountable for travel and/or accommodation costs incurred. However, the workshop fees will be refunded.
All workshops will be subject to minimum delegate numbers being met; in the event that a workshop should be cancelled delegates will be given no less than 2 months’ notice.
Replacing delegates
If a delegate is unable to attend and a replacement is nominated there may be a charge depending on the individual circumstances, this will be advised at the time. Please contact the us to request a replacement of delegates at least a week before the workshop date.
Contextual Consulting is committed to the identification and resolution of potential conflicts of interest in the planning, promotion, delivery, and evaluation of continuing education. Potential conflicts of interest occur when an individual assumes a professional role in the planning, promotion, delivery, or evaluation of continuing education where personal, professional, legal, financial, or other interests could reasonably be expected to impair their objectivity, competence, or effectiveness.
There was no commercial support for this event. None of the planners or presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.
At the end of this 6 hour workshop you will be able to:
- Describe sleep-worry patterns within insomnia / sleep difficulties
- Assess sleep difficulties and associated cognitive patterns
- Design interventions for client’s specific formulated difficulties
- Select strategies / exercises specific to sleep difficulties
- Evaluate and adapt sleep specific interventions