“The harder you try to sleep, the more elusive it is,” says Alisha L. Brosse, author of End the Insomnia Struggle. This is a sentiment most of us would probably identify as true, but it can be hard NOT to try hard to sleep—especially once you’ve developed certain patterns of thought, feelings, and behaviors associated with a lack of sleep. As a cognitive behavioral therapist, this is precisely what Brosse aims to address in her patients—many of whom come to her after more than a decade of struggling with insomnia.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be applied to a range of conditions but has shown to be the best treatment for insomnia, tremendously improving people’s quality of life in a relatively short period of time. Brosse explains the basics of what CBT entails, the specific strategies and importance of individualized approaches to the treatment of insomnia, the general length of time it takes before people start seeing improvement, and how to deal with the association between mental illnesses and insomnia. Press play to hear the full conversation, check out her book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble and visit her website at bouldercbt.com.

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