Mindful Sleep Therapy

Insomnia Prevention Plans
The aim of the Insomnia Prevention Plans is to enable individuals suffering from chronic insomnia to achieve regular good quality, consolidated, natural, non drug-based sleep. The plans teach people how to let go of fighting with their insomnia and therefore stop getting in the way of their body’s natural ability to sleep.

Dr. Guy Meadows (PhD) provides three different options depending on your needs all of which can be delivered face to face or over the phone/skype (one on one), or in a group setting.

Initial Consultation (1.5 hrs) Plan – £150 (one on one)

Every plan starts with an initial consultation which assesses the severity of an individual’s insomnia and helps to explain why it is happening and what they can do to tackle it. As a single session every individual leaves with a clear insomnia prevention plan to follow and receives a progress report email one month later. At the end of this session every clients will have the opportunity to discuss with Dr. Meadows whether they would benefit additional sessions.
Extended Sessions – £100 - £450 (one on one)
Designed for individuals who have been suffering with chronic insomnia for many months if not many years and who know they need one on one support over a period of time to enable them to improve their sleep.
This extended plan seeks to help people let go of struggling with their insomnia and understand that they have a choice when it comes to responding to it rather than been driven by habitual reactions. It increases awareness of unhelpful beliefs and attitudes about not sleeping and its perceived daytime consequences, as well as correcting dysfunctional body clocks habituated to poor sleep patterns.

Every individual receives a tailored ‘Insomnia Prevention Plan’ which is delivered and taught personally by Dr. Guy Meadows (PhD) either at his West London Clinic or via the phone. Additional one hour sessions can be added to your initial consultation at a cost of £100 per hour which can range from just one session to five additional sessions. If the five sessions are purchased with the initial consultation the cost in total is £600 (compared to £650 if paid for individually).

The space between the additional sessions depends on the progress of the individual and on average for 6 sessions it lasts 12 weeks. The support includes clients being actively encouraged to contact Dr. Guy Meadows (PhD) between sessions if they do not understand something or feel anxious about their progress. Click here to enquire now…

2 Day Workshop – £150 (group work, max. 12 people)
The workshop is targeted at all insomnia sufferers and covers everything in the highly successful ‘6 Session Insomnia Prevention Plan’, except talking sessions are done in guided groups and not one on one.
Every individual on the workshop will go away with their own personal insomnia prevention plan, a copy of the ‘6 Session Insomnia Prevention Plan’ booklet and the knowledge and skills to prevent their insomnia.
For the next Two Day Workshop date and more information please visit the London Insomnia Clinic blog.

The Approach
Dr. Guy Meadows (PhD) uses his own Mindful Sleep TherapyTM to provide a non drug based approach to tackle the many aspects of an individual’s insomnia and to ensure effective long term recovery.

Mindful Sleep Therapy - is centred on what good sleepers do to sleep, which is essentially nothing more than trusting their body’s natural ability to sleep. Everyone can sleep, but at certain points in our lives we experience something that causes it to be disturbed. As we become anxious, angry or frustrated about not sleeping we inadvertently get in the way of this natural process. Mindful Sleep Therapy teaches you to stop fighting, avoiding or trying to get rid of your insomnia as this is what fuels it and keeps you locked in its vicious cycle. It also understands that whilst ‘doing’ things to help you sleep may satisfy your internal desire to feel like you are coping or at least fixing the problem, ultimately it pushes you further away.

Learning how to slowly let go of struggling with your insomnia and play with your fear of not sleeping allows your sleep to emerge naturally once more.

Techniques include:
•    Acceptance and Commitment Therapy approaches- teaches you how to “just notice”, accept, and embrace your current mental state rather than trying to fight, avoid, or change it.  ACT aims to help you clarify your personal values and to take action on them, allowing you to free yourself from your insomnia and bring more vitality and meaning to your life in the process, rather than just spending your whole time trying to find a solution to your insomnia.
•    Mindfulness Approaches – learn how to live your life in the present moment rather than always being stuck in the past or imagining the future. You will learn how to spend your time sleeping rather than worrying about past poor quality sleep or how you could feel tomorrow if you don’t sleep. Learn to stop trying to switch off your mind and instead become familiar with your thoughts and emotions and begin to choose how you wish to react to them rather than been driven by well rehearsed habitual responses.

•    Stimulus Acceptance Therapy – learn to fall in love with your bed again and make it a place of sleep rather than a battleground. Understand how our reaction to being awake at night determines your ability to get back to sleep. For example constantly avoiding your bed by getting up in the middle of the night may offer a short term solution but ultimately pushes you further away from the place you want to be. Learning how to be with wakefulness rather than fight against it is the balance that brings sleep.
•   Sleep Restriction Therapy – Not needed for everyone, but a helpful tool for establishing a robust sleep wake cycle, as well as improving sleep quality and efficiency (the amount of time spent in bed asleep).
•    Sleep Hygiene Awareness – realise that sleep hygiene guidelines are not as black and white as most people will tell you and must be tailored to the individual to avoid them becoming a further source of sleep anxiety. For example avoiding caffeine or alcohol, exercising everyday or ritually having a cup of warm milk and a bath before bed does not guarantee a good night’s sleep!).
•    Dietary and Fitness Analysis - to correct poor eating and exercising habits that could be inhibiting good quality sleep (only if considered to be necessary following initial consultation).

The success of his plans is due to their holistic nature and the fact that ‘no stone is left unturned’ when identifying why an individual cannot sleep. The prevention plans give people the tools and knowledge to combat their insomnia, as well as the support from Dr. Guy Meadows, an insomnia specialist, to ensure individuals are not alone during this difficult time.

To see a video clip of Dr. Guy Meadows discussing his insomnia prevention plans please click go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfgJf6mavzI

Booking
If you would like to book appointment or arrange to speak with Dr. Guy Meadows (PhD) to discuss which plan would be most suitable for your needs please call 0844 561 0474 or click here to enquire now.