If your child only falls asleep with you beside them — holding a hand, being stroked, or with you in the room — and wakes in the night needing you back, this is not about spoiling. It is about learning. Children learn to sleep through association: whatever conditions they fall asleep with, they will need […]
The sleep effort paradox is simple: the harder you try to fall asleep, the harder it becomes. The thought “I must fall asleep now” tells the brain this is an emergency — and the body responds by raising your heart rate, tensing your muscles and sharpening your mind, the exact opposite of sleep. CBT-I doesn’t […]
CBT-I is not “talking about your childhood”, and it is not a collection of sleep tips. It is a focused, short-term, structured treatment that treats insomnia as a changeable pattern. It works across several levels at once — sleep habits, the thoughts that create pressure around sleep, the link between day and night, and the […]
When your child wakes in the night screaming, sweating and frightened but doesn’t really respond — and remembers nothing in the morning — it is usually not a nightmare. These are night terrors: a common phenomenon in childhood, mainly between ages 3 and 8, that happens during deep sleep. The child is asleep even though […]
Feeling exhausted all day yet unable to fall asleep at night is one of the most confusing experiences in insomnia — and it comes down to the difference between tiredness and sleepiness. Tiredness is a feeling of low energy; sleepiness is a biological state in which the brain is genuinely ready to fall asleep. People […]
Insomnia almost never starts at night — it starts during the day. It is not a problem of “being unable to sleep” but a problem of over-arousal: the nervous system stays switched on long after it is time to rest. CBT-I, the first-line treatment recommended by NICE and the NHS, works by dismantling the things […]
Night terrors in children are a common, harmless event that happens during deep sleep — not a nightmare. The child may scream, look frightened, thrash about or even get up and walk, yet they are fully asleep, unaware of what is happening, and will remember nothing in the morning. Most children grow out of them […]
Insomnia almost never comes from a single cause. It is usually a combination of factors — physical, psychological and behavioural — that lock together into a self-feeding cycle. To understand how to get out of insomnia, you first need to understand how it started, and above all what is keeping it going now. That is […]
Insomnia is very common during the menopause and perimenopause — but it is not your fate. Although the trigger is often physical (falling oestrogen, hot flushes, night sweats), the insomnia itself is usually held in place by behavioural and cognitive patterns that respond very well to CBT-I, the treatment recommended by NICE and the NHS […]
Regular exercise genuinely helps sleep — it strengthens your natural sleep drive, reduces stress and anxiety, and supports your body clock. But exercise is not a sleeping pill, and it shouldn’t be used to “force” sleep. Done in the right way, as part of a wider approach such as CBT-I, physical activity supports better sleep […]
Looking for help with a child’s bedwetting? Visit Dr Jonathan Kushnir’s dedicated UK clinic enuresis.co.uk.
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