“When anxiety disorders cause insomnia, and the tools from CBT-I you can use to help”

This 1.5 hour presentation provides an overview of the comorbidity between anxiety disorders and insomnia and examines interventions from cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), an empirically supported treatment. 

Anxiety disorders are among the most common problems for patients to present with in general clinical practice. Individuals with anxiety disorders are far more likely to report sleep disturbances and are more likely to develop insomnia. However, despite the relative ease to learn and implement, empirically supported treatments for insomnia are not implemented as often as they could be. CBT-I in particular is supported by a wealth of empirical evidence in both randomized clinical trials and effectiveness studies, and is based on cognitive behavioral principles that will be immediately familiar to most clinicians. This presentation aims to teach clinicians interventions from CBT-I that they can incorporate into their general clinical practice when patients present with insomnia alongside anxiety disorders they are already treating. The presenter will provide a review of the existing empirical literature on the overlap between anxiety disorders and insomnia, insomnia assessment options, step by step directions on how to properly implement CBT-I interventions, and de-identified case vignette examples based on real world clinical practice in sleep and anxiety specialty clinics. 

Webinar’s Objectives:

After attending this seminar, participants will be able to…

Objective 1: Identify insomnia disorder and know the diagnostic criteria, understand the comorbidity between insomnia and anxiety disorders, and understand the behavioral model of insomnia

Objective 2: Use well validated measures to properly assess for insomnia disorder, know the empirical support for the use of CBT-I.

Objective 3: Properly implement interventions from CBT-I (e.g. stimulus control, sleep restriction).