Bright Light Therapy And Finding An Insomnia Cure

Bright light therapy can be particularly useful in the case of two out of the three main types on insomnia: "Initial" insomnia and "Late" or "Terminal" insomnia.

Initial Insomnia

If you suffer from initial insomnia (sometimes also referred to as sleep onset insomnia), your major difficulty lies in getting to sleep. Once asleep, you will often sleep reasonably well, but may find it hard to get up in the mornings.

Initial insomnia is often seen in younger people and some studies suggest that it affects about seven percent of people attending sleep treatment clinics.

In this case your body clock has shifted so that instead of telling your brain that it is time to go to sleep at say ten or eleven o'clock in the evening, it does not send out these signals until perhaps one or two o'clock in the morning.

Similarly, when your body clock should be telling your brain to get up at seven or eight in the morning, you body clock is still set for sleep and won't be sending out the necessary wake up signals until about ten or eleven o'clock in the morning.

To re-adjust the body clock bright light therapy is best used in the morning to get you up and going, and its use over a period of several days will gradually move your body clock back to coincide with your normal sleeping routine.

Late or Terminal Insomnia

If you suffer from late (or terminal) insomnia, your main problem is waking too early in the morning. Normally, getting to sleep presents little difficulty, but you wake after a relatively short period of insufficient sleep.

In this case your body clock is set too early telling you to go to sleep before it is time to do so and similarly telling you to get up far too early.

In the case of late insomnia light therapy needs to be applied during the early evening to re-adjust your body clock and, again, using it consistently over a period of several days will move your body clock back to coincide with your normal sleeping routine.