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For the ones who have a hard time sleeping or are plagued by Insomnia, the first thing that comes into mind is take sleeping pills to get some immediate shuteye. But as everyone perhaps has experienced, headed down this route could eventually induce some form of side effect.

The side effects could be tolerable depending on the type of pill one takes but overall, the bottom line is that it bring up certain health concerns. There are other forms of addressing Insomnia-related problems, normally therapeutic in nature.

To the common tao, music therapy is one of the alternatives that some would undertake with others perking it up with some aroma therapy as well. In all, therapy seems to be a safer alternative and the American College of Physicians may have another therapy-based solution called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

CBT is a way to condition the human body to slumber better, doing away with the impending fear of side effects.

"Prescribing a sleeping pill is not the desirable first step," said the Dr. Thomas Tape, chief of general internal medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Yet for many primary care physicians, the behavioral approach "wasn't really on our radar screens," he said.

For anyone, it is important to get the right amount of sleep. Folks aged 18 to 60 are required to sleep at least seven hours a night for a body to properly recover from daily rigors. There are some who try to cheat their way towards reaching that goal but such comes with health risks such as high blood pressure and obesity.

With the changing world, Insomnia has become rampant. It is tied up with the kind of lifestyle one follows or the work they are in. Stress and illness could also be a cause and in all, Insomnia is hard to correct and would last weeks to months.

What comprises Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

As mentioned earlier, CBT is all about conditioning the human brain and body in an effort to do away the issues one comes across when trying to get some much needed shuteye.

The hardest step with the therapy is sleep restriction. To illustrate this better, people who sleep about 5.5 hours a night will be tasked to add an extra hour and then count back the resulting six hours from the time you have to wake up. Hence, if one needs to wake up by 5 a.m., he or she would have to sleep by 11 p.m. of the previous day.

Though it may sound simple and something that people have been trying to do, its relevance is important. Staying up that long builds the body's natural drive for sleep so that once in bed, patients slumber right away explains Duke University clinical psychologist Meg Lineberger.

While the recourse seems like a good thing to consider, Insomniac need to understand that this is not an overnight solution. Typically, CBT involves four to six appointments several weeks apart. Alternatively, folks can resort to some online options.