How It's Complicated works
1
Find your therapistUse our free matching service for personal recommendations, or browse our network of 2,500+ therapists yourself.
2
Create your free accountSign up in under 2 minutes. All you need is an email and a password, and you're ready to go.
3
Start therapyReach out to your therapist and book your first session within 24 hours. Online or in person, in 60+ languages.
Learn more about insomnia & sleep disorders
Insomnia is a sleep disorder involving persistent difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking too early, despite having the opportunity to sleep. Occasional sleepless nights are a normal response to stress, but insomnia becomes chronic when it occurs several nights a week for three months or more, affecting energy, mood, and concentration during the day. Chronic insomnia is highly treatable: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) is recommended in clinical guidelines as the first-line treatment, ahead of sleeping medication, because its effects last after therapy ends.
Insomnia is partly defined by what happens at night and partly by what it does to your days.
Common signs include:
- Lying awake for long stretches before falling asleep
- Waking during the night and struggling to get back to sleep
- Waking earlier than intended and being unable to drift off again
- Feeling unrefreshed even after a full night in bed
- Daytime fatigue, irritability, or difficulty concentrating
- Worrying about sleep during the day, and dreading bedtime
- Relying on alcohol or medication to get to sleep
Sleep responds well to structured psychological treatment, often within weeks.
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) includes CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia), the gold-standard treatment for chronic insomnia. It retrains the associations between bed and sleep, restructures the worry that keeps you awake, and rebuilds a stable sleep pattern.
Mindfulness reduces the mental arousal that keeps the brain alert at night, teaching you to observe racing thoughts without engaging them. It has good evidence for sleep and combines well with CBT-I.
ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) helps you drop the struggle with sleeplessness itself, which paradoxically is often what lets sleep return. It suits people whose effort to control sleep has become the trap.
Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy combines structured CBT methods with hypnotherapeutic techniques for deep relaxation. It can help where physical tension and an overactive mind keep sleep out of reach.
Choosing an approach isn't something you have to do alone. IC's matching can pair you with a therapist whose approach suits your situation. Get matched.
It's Complicated is a therapist-founded mental health platform connecting clients with verified practitioners across Europe and globally, in over 60 languages. The platform is free to use, with over 2,500 vetted therapists offering in-person sessions in cities including Berlin, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Lisbon, and Vienna, alongside online sessions worldwide.
When you're running on broken sleep, the last thing you need is a complicated search. You complete a short survey, our psychologists combine data-driven insights with human judgement to identify the right therapists for your situation, and you choose from a shortlist of strong candidates. You can also browse our directory directly if you'd prefer to choose yourself.
Get matched with a therapist who specialises in insomnia and sleep, or browse all sleep therapists in the directory.
.jpg)
33194Q%20%E5%85%A9%E5%90%8B.jpg)
