How Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Help You Feel More Awake

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach – a tool used by psychologists in order to help treat patients suffering with various kinds of mental health disorders like stress and depression. The basic idea behind the process is to look at the underlying thought processes that make us feel and act certain ways. For instance, when you are afraid or anxious of something, it’s normally because you are running through your mind all the things that could possibly go wrong. While this might seem fairly normal and fairly unavoidable, it is actually about the worst thing you can do for your stress and so if you could only convince yourself not to worry, you’d find you were better able to perform in high-stress situations.

This same process can also be applied to your energy levels. Read on and we’ll look at how…

How Your Beliefs Shape Your Tiredness

Sleep is incredibly important for our energy and of course the more good quality sleep you get the more awake and refreshed you’ll feel in the morning. However, this doesn’t mean that you should worry too much if you only get 4 hours of sleep one night. It’s not ideal but you should still be functional – remember when you were younger and you would often operate on that amount?

In one study it was shown that people who think they’re very tired will be tired. The study told participants it was going to monitor how well they slept and then in the morning it scored them with a percentage. The participants would then take a number of cognitive tests and it was found that those who were told they had slept better performed better every time. And this was despite the fact that they actually all slept just as well as each other! Those who thought they ‘should be tired’ performed worse due to a ‘nocebo’ – the opposite of a placebo.

How to Wake Yourself Up

If you’re stressing about being overtired after a poor night’s sleep then, you are actually shooting yourself in the foot and making yourself perform worse. Instead, then, use cognitive behavioral therapy techniques and you can convince yourself that there’s no reason your performance should be impaired and that you are awake. As a result, you will find your brain releases more neurotransmitters that are associated with alertness and wakefulness and you will feel better.