Colleen Carney
Colleen Carney is a clinical psychologist at Toronto Metropolitan University, where she is a professor and directs the Sleep and Depression Laboratory. With William Waters she developed constructive worry, the protocol of writing down each problem and its next step a couple of hours before bed rather than working on it in the dark. Her wider work is on where insomnia and low mood overlap.
Who they are
Two terms, glossed. Pre-sleep cognitive arousal is the mental activity that keeps a person awake: planning, replaying, problem-solving, the mind running when the body is ready to stop. Sleep onset latency is simply how long it takes to fall asleep after the light goes out.
Her particular contribution is telling worry and rumination apart inside a sleep complaint. Worry runs forwards, towards things that might happen. Rumination runs backwards, over things that already have. The distinction is exactly what an article about lying awake needs, because the two respond to different things.
Her affiliation was confirmed in the vault on 11 September 2026.
Key papers
Carney, C. E., & Waters, W. F. (2006). The constructive worry protocol. In students with insomnia, the protocol reduced pre-sleep mental activity. How long it took them to fall asleep did not change. William Waters has no page on this site yet.
Carney, C. E., and colleagues (2010). On distinguishing rumination from worry in clinical insomnia, Behaviour Research and Therapy.
Key ideas
The honest result is the split one. The protocol quietened the mind and did not measurably shorten the time to sleep. Both halves belong in any account of it, and this site does not present it as a way to fall asleep faster.
Worry and rumination are not the same complaint and should not be treated as one inside a sleep problem.
Where this sits in treatment. The established treatment for chronic insomnia is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia. Constructive worry is one component-level technique from that tradition, not a substitute for it, and anyone with a persistent sleep problem should be dealing with a clinician rather than with an article.
Concepts on this site
Constructive Worry, which is hers
Pre-Sleep Cognitive Arousal, what it reduced
Sleep Onset Latency, what it did not change
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia
Sources
- Carney, C. E., & Waters, W. F. (2006). The constructive worry protocol. Reduced pre-sleep cognitive arousal in college students with insomnia; sleep onset latency unchanged.
- Carney, C. E., and colleagues (2010). Behaviour Research and Therapy, on distinguishing rumination from worry in clinical insomnia.
- Vault record, 2026-09-11. Affiliation confirmed: Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University, director of the Sleep and Depression Laboratory.