What Is EMDR and How Can It Help Insomnia?
There are many things that are vital to the mind and body to keep it healthy and functioning effectively. Toward the top of that list is sleep—not only quantity of hours, but also your quality of rest.
When insomnia strikes, it can impact all aspects of your life, from cognition to energy levels. Knowing what to do next is key to prevent your insomnia from spiraling into something more significant.
This is where EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, comes into play.
What Is EMDR?
EMDR is a type of therapy that has been primarily used to treat PTSD, but has evolved into an effective tool for use with a range of other mental health conditions. Those with depression, anxiety, phobias, and even insomnia have seen good outcomes from treatment.
Unlike traditional talk therapies, EMDR focuses more on processing stuck memories that often stem from a traumatic experience. This approach utilizes bilateral stimulation to simulate your REM sleep cycle, a place where the mind can restore itself and recover. You’ll participate in side-to-side eye movements while being exposed to a physical or auditory stimulus.
Phases of EMDR
EMDR occurs over eight phases in a session.
History: Your therapist will go over your medical and personal history to gain an understanding of your situation.
Preparation: Once you have your target memory, you and your therapist will discuss the EMDR process and what to expect.
Assessment: Together, you’ll identify an area to target during treatment and establish a baseline.
Desensitization: This is where the process itself starts, using the bilateral stimulation to start reducing the negative associations with the target memory.
Installation: A new positive belief will be installed to replace any negative thoughts, reinforcing it until it feels true.
Body Scan: You’ll be asked to complete a scan of your full body to note any areas where stress may still be lingering.
Closure: You'll be guided to a state of calm regardless of the treatment being fully compete or not.
Reevaluation: To start each session, you’ll discuss previous memories that have been reprocessed to ensure success.
How EMDR Can Help Insomnia
Insomnia itself is not a mental health condition. It can, however, be linked to various issues, either fueling them or a byproduct of them.
Trauma
If insomnia is related to an experience with trauma, EMDR will help you to process any memories that are stuck and causing you grief. As you reduce your distress, your sleep quality should improve.
Anxiety
When insomnia is a symptom of anxiety, EMDR can be used to help you find a reduction in your stress and anxiety levels. As anxiety lessens, the goal would be to restore your sleep schedule. As your sleep improves, it will also help your anxiety stay managed.
Emotional Regulation
EMR can be an effective tool for learning how to better regulate your emotions. As this skill evolves, the day-to-day stressors won’t take the same type of toll on you. Less stress can be a huge help for being able to fall asleep easier at night.
Confidence
Finally, EMDR can help you get to a place where you feel confident in your ability to weather emotional challenges and make it through unscathed. Having an enhanced self-efficacy can also improve your sleep quality.
The Benefits
EMDR therapy is an evidence-based method for finding healing from multiple mental health conditions. It does move at a faster pace compared to other therapeutic approaches, with some people finding relief in as few as six sessions. It does require the guidance of a trained professional to walk you through each of the eight structured phases.
If insomnia is starting to reduce your quality of life, now is a great time to explore how EMDR can help. Contact us today to schedule your first session!