Do behavioural and relaxation therapies help?
Researchers from the University of Alberta in Canada were commissioned by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to study and summarise the evidence about treatments for chronic insomnia in adults. One of their questions was whether or not behaviour and relaxation therapies help people with insomnia sleep better and/or longer. The researchers found 21 trials that looked at many different therapies, and were mostly only small trials. Altogether, relaxation techniques were tested in under 400 people and behavioural therapies were tested in less than 300 people. All of the participants had insomnia that was not caused by a medical condition and they were all over 18 years old, but only a few were older than 60. Most of them were women. The researchers concluded that relaxation therapy could help people sleep longer, but the quality of their sleep did not really improve. The benefit mainly came from getting to sleep more quickly. The therapies that worked in these trials were br
