Behavioral Sleep Medicine

We treat a wide range of sleep issues and conditions in our program. Some people who might benefit from our care include:

• Individuals who have had trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or getting enough sleep more than three nights a week, for at least 3 months.
• Individuals with difficulties fulfilling their daily responsibilities because of issues with falling asleep or waking up at a necessary time.
• Individuals with narcolepsy or idiopathic hypersomnia who are struggling with daytime functioning, mood and nighttime sleep disturbances (insomnia, sleep paralysis).
• Individuals who are regularly experiencing detailed nightmares that wake them up during the night.
• Individuals diagnosed with sleep apnea who’ve struggled to start or regularly use positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy.

Some of the conditions we treat in the program include:

• Insomnia
• Circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders
• Narcolepsy
• Idiopathic hypersomnia
• Nightmares
• Night terrors, sleepwalking, confusional arousals and other parasomnias 
• Difficulties with using a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine for sleep apnea 

How long should you wait to get help for sleep issues?

A few days of missed or low-quality sleep are a part of life, and extra stress or life-changing events can cause a short stint of sleep disruption. By adopting some lifestyle changes and better habits, you can typically resolve this kind of short-term insomnia on your own.

However, if you notice a pattern of sleep issues continuing for more than three months and happening at least three nights a week, or if your sleep problems are causing serious quality-of-life issues, our Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program can help.

Our behavioral sleep experts help you explore how your behaviors or daily habits might be barriers to better sleep and how your mental and physical health plays a role. Together, we choose the lifestyle changes, behavior modifications and treatments that will make a difference.

Every person receives an individualized treatment plan with treatment goals and recommendations tailored to their unique needs. Your behavioral sleep treatment plan may include one or more of these therapies:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I): The gold standard treatment for insomnia, CBT-I targets the thoughts, feelings and behaviors that contribute to the development and persistence of insomnia and replaces them with strategies to help maintain good sleep long-term.
• Brief Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (BBT-I): A shorter, behavior-focused treatment for insomnia, this therapy typically lasts only four to six sessions.
• Image Rehearsal Therapy (IRT): This is a brief intervention for individuals with recurrent nightmares, especially those with post-traumatic stress disorder. During IRT, you’ll create a narrative of the nightmare, reframe it to have an alternative ending and rehearse the new dream during the daytime to reduce how often the nightmare occurs. Most individuals experience improvements with as little as two weeks of consistent IRT practice.
• Chronotherapy: This intervention uses a range of natural strategies to help realign circadian rhythms, including sleep-wake cycles, with traditional clock time to help individuals meet the demands of daily living and maintain a consistent sleep-wake schedule.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Hypersomnolence (CBT-H): For people with narcolepsy, idiopathic hypersomnia or Kleine-Levin syndrome, we can offer CBT-H. This evidence-based therapy is provided alongside frontline medication and has been shown to improve daily functioning, mood, nighttime sleep quality and daytime sleepiness.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for PAP Support: We provide acclimation and desensitization strategies to overcome anxiety and claustrophobia and to help individuals establish and maintain proper usage of their CPAP, BiPAP or AutoPAP machine.
• Modified CBT-I: CBT-I is readily and frequently modified to fit the needs of people with trauma, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety, mood disorders, postpartum insomnia and a wide range of other medical and psychiatric conditions.
• Patient education and resources: Self-help books and digital platforms can provide expert knowledge for self-guided treatment, to allow you to go at your pace.

Many of our services are available for individual therapy, group sessions and online programs, depending on needs and preferences. Sessions typically last 45 to 60 minutes and occur once a week for six to eight weeks or every other week for four to six sessions.

Benefits of being treated in the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at Ohio State

Our team members have been recognized for their excellence in providing behavioral sleep medicine interventions for the full range of sleep disorders and are passionate about developing individualized treatment plans unique to each person’s needs.

Also, the behavioral sleep medicine program is part of one of the nation’s largest academic medical centers, and our team has access to a wide range of medical specialists who can help address other medical concerns while we work with you to improve your sleep. This combined approach can create lasting results, which can improve your sleep and broader quality of life.

Our Behavioral Sleep Medicine team is also active in sleep research and education, and we strive to be aware of the latest therapies and treatments and regularly engage with sleep specialists nationwide.

Our academic and education activities include:

• Monthly meetings with other Ohio State specialists to share strategies and increase physician awareness of behavioral sleep medicine interventions
• Workshops and lectures for local, national and international audiences
• Interdisciplinary and interagency sleep psychology meetings that are open to researchers and clinicians interested in behavioral sleep medicine
• Active members, including some in leadership positions, in the Society for Behavioral Sleep Medicine, the largest international professional society for behavioral sleep medicine
• Membership on the expert panel charged with formulating the international guidelines for behavioral sleep medicine competency-based training
• Ohio State Sleep Fellowship rotations in Behavioral Sleep Medicine and elective experiences for our Psychiatry resident physicians and Psychology interns

How to make an appointment with Behavioral Sleep specialists

Don’t wait to get the help you need if you’ve been struggling with sleep for longer than three months. Behavioral sleep medicine interventions are considered the best first-line treatments for insomnia, and are highly effective for many other types of sleep disturbances. We’ll work alongside your health care providers, including sleep medicine specialists you may already be receiving care from, to develop the best plan for improving your sleep. Sleep intervention services are provided in several of our outpatient Behavioral Health clinics.

Here’s how to get started on a better night’s sleep:

• Call us directly – You can make an appointment directly with us by calling 614-293-9600. Select option 2 and ask for Behavioral Sleep Medicine.
• Request a referral – If you feel more comfortable asking for a referral from one of your current providers (either at Ohio State or elsewhere), simply ask them to contact Behavioral Sleep Medicine through your MyChart account or our Ohio State CareLink referral portal.