Effects of a Structured Problem-Solving Procedure on Pre-Sleep Cognitive Arousal in College Students With Insomnia
Carney and Waters tested a small intervention against the particular problem of a racing mind at bedtime. Students reporting insomnia spent five nights either writing down their worries along with worry questionnaires, or writing down possible solutions to those worries, a technique called constructive worry. The second group showed reduced mental arousal before sleep, both compared with the first group and compared with their own baseline. The comparison is what makes the study useful: simply recording worries was not enough, and in this design it did nothing. What helped was moving from listing a problem to writing what could be done about it, done earlier in the evening rather than in bed. The sample is small and drawn from students rather than patients, so the finding supports adding a cognitive component to insomnia treatment rather than establishing a standalone remedy. This vault cites it whenever writing things down before bed comes up.
Carney and Waters tested a small intervention against the particular problem of a racing mind at bedtime. Students reporting insomnia spent five nights either writing down their worries along with worry questionnaires, or writing down possible solutions to those worries, a technique called constructive worry. The second group showed reduced mental arousal before sleep, both compared with the first group and compared with their own baseline. The comparison is what makes the study useful: simply recording worries was not enough, and in this design it did nothing. What helped was moving from listing a problem to writing what could be done about it, done earlier in the evening rather than in bed. The sample is small and drawn from students rather than patients, so the finding supports adding a cognitive component to insomnia treatment rather than establishing a standalone remedy. This vault cites it whenever writing things down before bed comes up.
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What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
Carney, C. E. & Waters, W. F. (2006). "Effects of a structured problem-solving procedure on pre-sleep cognitive arousal in college students with insomnia." Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 4(1), 13-28. Constructive worry reduced pre-sleep cognitive arousal; sleep onset latency did not change.
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- Why You Lie Awake at 3am Replaying One Conversation, Why We Care
Reliability of this reference
The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1207/s15402010bsm0401_2
DOI: 10.1207/s15402010bsm0401_2