Insomnia treatment for athletes and perfomers

You want to do your best as an athlete. You’re constantly thinking about your next workout or mentally preparing for your next opponent. Your mind is constantly working, even while you are in bed trying to get to sleep. You know how important sleep is for your mental and physical recovery if you want to perform your best. You’ve heard your coaches and the athletes you look up to talk about how important it is to be “disciplined” or even “religious” about sleep. Unfortunately, this knowledge puts pressure on you making it even more difficult to get to sleep.

It doesn’t help that you often have late training sessions or competitions that leave your body still pumped with adrenaline when you need to start winding down for the day. Often times, teammates or friends will even want to celebrate after a competition keeping you away from your bed even longer.

You know your sleep is a problem so, when you can, you get into bed early. You toss and turn and try to force yourself to sleep. The longer you stay in bed the less rested you feel. You started taking melatonin. You listen to podcasts and watch YouTube videos about how to beat insomnia and ensure that you get your needed 8 hours of sleep. However, nothing seems to work. You heard about cognitive behavioral therapy from your primary care doctor or from a Google search. You don’t think you need “therapy” but at this point you’re willing to try it if it will help.