How Did Insomnia Therapy Beat Sleeping Pills for Years?

On Huberman Lab, sleeping pills are a short-term solution to certain forms of insomnia and are not recommended for the long term. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, a non-drug psychological approach, is just as effective as sleeping pills and more effective in the long term.

Clinical practice still leaves a possible time and a place for sleeping pills. The long-term record favors cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. A recent study found that after working with a therapist, some of the benefits lasted almost a decade. Stopping sleeping pills usually brings rebound insomnia, and sleep goes back to being just as bad, if not worse.

The split is what happens after the intervention ends. Benefits from cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia can remain for almost a decade after the work with a therapist, while stopping sleeping pills commonly returns sleep to the same poor level or worse.