As a CBT therapist in Austin, I encounter client after client who struggles with rumination. It cuts across all of my specialties. When I discuss this concept with people I’m working with, this is how I like to explain it.

I was interviewed as a sleep specialist in Austin on a podcast called Warrior Forward. The podcast focuses on women’s health and self-care. The host has herself dealt with insomnia for over a decade and shares a little of her experience. I give a session-by-session overview of what CBT-I with me looks like.

I offer this sleep hack: spend less time in bed. That’s right. Less.

Less?! How am I going to get sleep if I’m not in bed?

People with insomnia are usually problem solvers by nature. So, of course, they apply that problem-solving prowess to their sleep issue. The thinking is to maximize time spent in bed and cast a big, wide net to increase the probability of catching some sleep. It makes some logical sense. But it doesn’t work.

Circadian rhythms are one of several biological rhythms in humans.

The word circadian is derived from the Latin circa (about) + dies (day). This rhythm takes approximately 24 hours to complete one full cycle. Body processes related to this rhythm include (but are not limited to) your sleep-wake cycle, body temperature, and melatonin production.

As a provider of Radically Open DBT in Austin, I treat something called maladaptive overcontrol. You’ve probably never heard that term; it’s not really in the zeitgeist. But it describes a lot of people. In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret: Most therapists (myself included) are overcontrolled. If you have an advanced degree and/or have achieved any level of career success, you are most likely overcontrolled.

I was interviewed as the inaugural guest on the Stories of Hope - Lessons Learned from Trauma podcast. The host is himself a trauma survivor-turned-advocate who has since started a nonprofit called From Victim to Victor. I offered insights as an Austin trauma therapist.

Seniors are especially prone to sleep issues. Biological transitions, like the advancing of the circadian rhythm, and social transitions, like retirement, set the stage for disrupted sleep. Reach out today to talk to a sleep specialist in Austin with experience meeting the sleep needs of older adults.

Pain is a danger signal generated in the brain. We feel pain to protect us from future tissue damage. The whole function of pain is to alert you to a problem.

How does pain work?

1. Sensory receptors send messages through nerve fibers to the spinal cord, where the sensations are registered

2. These messages then go on to the brain where they are perceived

Some people find they sleep better if they flip around and out their head at the foot of the bed. Why does this work? An Austin sleep specialist explains more.

Plenty of folks who can’t sleep turn to melatonin. Most people think of it as a sleep aid but they generally don’t find it effective for insomnia. An Austin sleep therapist break it down.

After a traumatic event, people star looking backward for signs or clues then blame themselves for missing those signs or clues. An Austin trauma therapist can help you sort through the shame, guilt, and self-blame and let go of what isn’t yours to hold.

Let’s say you’re having trouble sleeping. Do you go to your primary care doctor? A sleep lab? A regular old talk therapist? A cursory Google search for “sleep specialist Austin” returns over 9 million results. Scroll past the sponsored posts and you start seeing providers. Some are doctors at large clinics. Others are therapists in small private practices. There are even apps that promise they can help you sleep better.

PTSD makes you feel alone, like your watching your life instead of participating in it. You world gets smaller and smaller. Working with an Austin trauma therapist can help you ease back into your life and feel like yourself again.

In our culture, self-control is generally praised and associated with success. The thinking is that you can’t have too much self-control. Further, deficits in self-control, like substance abuse, binge eating, or financial difficulties, are often what bring people into therapy. So…more self-control is always better, right? Not so fast, acording to a Radically Open DBT therapist in Austin. 

I am very often asked, by clients and therapists alike, to explain the difference between Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RODBT). RODBT spun off of DBT but is actually pretty difference from the modality that birthed it.

As a therapist in Austin, people are constantly asking me how to find the right help for their needs. Austin appears to have a lot of therapists which might seem like a good thing. But you know that situation where too many choices feels overwhelming and there is so much fear about making the wrong choice that you’re paralyzed? Further, even once you get past the hurdle of reaching out to a potential therapist, you’re met with “not taking new clients” or appointments not available anytime soon. Or you just never hear back from them.