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A SIeep Diary

You will be asked to complete a sleep diary for two weeks. The sleep diary will provide valuable insights into the pattern of poor sleep that you have fallen into. This will enable us to target our treatment to ensure the best results.

Click here to download your Sleep Diary

First Meeting

In our first 50-minute meeting I will review your sleep diary. I will be keen to understand when the sleeping difficulty started and how it is affecting your life. My focus then will be to explore and identify the perpetuating factors that are maintaining the insomnia. My goal is to identify and target the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that are stopping you from falling or staying asleep.

Your Sleep Plan

Towards the end of our first meeting a tailored step by step plan will be developed to treat your insomnia. Your sleep plan will target the main causes of your insomnia. Over the following weeks you will implement this plan which will be reviewed and modified if required during our follow up sessions.

Your sleep plan will cover such areas as

  • Improving your sleep hygiene
  • Relaxation and mindfulness
  • Managing daytime stress
  • Managing your anxiety about falling asleep
  • Slowing down a racing mind
  • Reducing thinking and worrying in bed
  • Eliminating the tendency to catastrophise about the impact another sleepless night will have on your ability to function effectively the next day
  • Reducing your anxiety about the impact insomnia may be having on your health
  • Strategies for getting back to sleep when waking during the night
  • Strategies for managing, nightmares, night terrors, night panic attacks and sleepwalking
  • Managing circadian rhythm disorders such as advanced and delayed sleep phase syndromes, non-24 free running sleep disorder, shift work and jet lag
  • Getting off sleeping medication

After our initial session you will then go away and apply the strategies with follow up sessions as required. Experience tells us that it will take, on average, about 4-5 weeks before you will notice an improvement in your sleep. This program is suitable for teenagers and adults of all ages

This program will suit you if you suffer from any of the following sleeping problems

  • Trouble falling asleep
  • Waking frequently during the night
  • Waking early in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep
  • Falling asleep early in the evening then waking in the early hours of the morning unable to get back to sleep
  • Anxiety about falling and staying asleep

General Counselling Services

As a clinical and counselling psychologist I also work with people needing help in the following areas.

  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Phobias
  • Obsessive compulsive disorders
  • Post traumatic stress disorder
  • Life adjustment issues – Mid life crisis