ACT for insomnia & sleep difficulties

Book now: https://contextualconsulting.co.uk/live-training/act-for-insomnia-sleep-difficulties-2025 

Struggling with sleep often becomes a vicious cycle with fear of sleeplessness and pressure to sleep fuelling behaviours that worsen insomnia. Add to this a storm of racing thoughts and contradictory advice, and it’s no wonder so many feel stuck.

This workshop looks at supporting our client to break this cycle by addressing the cognitive traps and emotional stressors that sabotage sleep. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) helps tackle sleeplessness by teaching client’s mindfulness strategies and thought defusion techniques to address racing minds and decrease pressure to sleep. It encourages value-based actions and present-moment awareness, breaking cycles of hyperarousal and unhelpful behaviours that perpetuate insomnia.

Background to the workshop

One key difficulty that gets in the way of our sleep is the pressure to go to sleep. Many experience an associated fear of what might happen should they not sleep well. So how do we help people with a healthy desire to protect their sleep and well-being yet who continue to have sleep difficulties?

Besides the cognitive binds we find ourselves in, we’re faced with a myriad of confusing messages. What should and shouldn’t we do if we have insomnia? The fear of sleeplessness and the increased pressure to sleep can contribute to us engaging in behaviours which do, in fact, get in the way of improving our sleep patterns.

Many clients refer to a ‘racing mind’ they experience when trying to fall asleep, and which becomes more prominent when they wake up during the night or the early hours of the morning. This racing mind is difficult to shift with traditional cognitive strategies.

What you will gain from this workshop

This is a practical skills focused workshop that will help you assist your clients experiencing sleep problems

By the end of this workshop, participants will:

• Understand how insomnia can take root and develop into a chronic issue.
• Explore the relationship between insomnia and the ACT hexaflex model.
• Help clients recognise how engagement with thoughts can interfere with sleep.
• Guide clients in addressing a ‘racing mind’ using ACT strategies like thought defusion.
• Support clients in reducing the pressure they feel to sleep.
• Examine how perspective-taking and present-moment awareness play a role in insomnia.
• Identify barriers to behaviour change and explore any reinforcing ‘payoffs’ that maintain sleep difficulties.
• Learn how to adapt CBT for Insomnia (CBT-I) techniques to align with ACT principles.
• Help clients decide whether to stay in bed or get up when struggling to sleep.
• Assist clients in identifying their values and planning meaningful behaviour changes.
• Use mindfulness and present-moment strategies to break the cycle of thought engagement, hyperarousal, and insomnia.

 About this workshop

In this workshop, you will learn the main techniques and strategies to help your clients through a variety of methods including

• Teaching sessions explaining sleep science.
• Case examples.
• Interactive discussions.
• Experiential exercises.

Who will benefit from this workshop?

Meant for practitioners who have little to no previous experience training in ACT and cognitive behavioural work for sleep difficulties, we recommend this workshop for mental health professionals including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurse practitioners and mental health counsellors.