Many people with insomnia do underestimate the amount of sleep they get each night. However, this doesn’t mean that sleep restriction or stimulus control is without merit. That’s because these techniques don’t rely on completely accurate estimates of time. Instead, they are intended to help you more closely match the amount of time allotted for sleep and the amount of time spent in bed with the amount of time spent asleep.
To use your example of stimulus control (which involves getting out of bed when unable to sleep), it would be rare for someone to get up needlessly for a couple of reasons. First of all, if the individual is actually asleep, they wouldn’t physically be able to get out of bed. Second, if they are awake and feel that around half an hour has passed, it’s still a good idea to get out of bed in order to strengthen the association between the bed and sleep.
It’s also worth mentioning that the amount of time allotted for sleep should be constantly adjusted based upon an individual’s progress as they go through a course of CBT for insomnia. So, although there may be a slight discrepancy when it comes to how much time someone thinks they are sleeping compared to how much sleep they are actually getting, constant adjustments to the amount of time allotted for sleep over time will still lead to improvements because the way we estimate time tends not to change over time.
It’s usually best to think of the fact that many insomniacs underestimate sleep duration as a way of recognizing that you are probably getting more sleep than you think you are — and this should lead to less sleep-related worry and anxiety.
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