Insomnia Support Group
Insomnia is a symptom, rather than a disease, and is characterized by inadequate quantity or quality of sleep. People with insomnia complain of difficulty falling or staying asleep, which results in significant impairment of daytime functioning. Insomnia is categorized as transient (shorter than one week), short-term (one to three weeks) or chronic (longer than three...
Does anyone have any experience dealing with depression and insomnia together? Are there other methods other than medication I can try or anything anyone recommends? This is affecting, my studies, my life and most importantly my health!
Sorry, that is I have.
There are some things you can do on your own such as going to bed and waking up at the same time each day, getting exercise daily, limiting caffeine, turning off all screens at least one hour before bed...
Here is a link with a few other tips:
https://sleepfoundation.org/ask-the-expert/sleep-hygiene
Yes, depression and insomnia are often correlated, though the direction of causality is difficult to determine. Are we depressed because we can't sleep? Or can't sleep because we're depressed.
It matters not when the idea is to get healthy. But psychiatrists in treating depression often prescribe sleeping pills that only treat the symptom and not the true root of insomnia.
This is why sleep hygiene, stress management, stimulus control, and cognitive restructuring (the core methods of CBT adult sleep training methods) are all so effective for insomnia.
However, those method by themselves may not directly address your underlying beliefs about life -- likely distorted -- that contribute to depression.
If you are the self-help type, check out "Feeling Good: the New Mood Therapy" by Dr David Burns, a psychiatrist who specializes in depression. That book is one of the top-selling self-help books ever published.