I need to tell you something that might frustrate you—and it’s backed by decades of research into what actually perpetuates insomnia.
All those articles telling you to ban screens from your bedroom? The blue light blocking glasses you bought? The strict “no phones after 8pm” rule you’ve been trying to follow?
They’re missing the point entirely.
Recent research published in Sleep Medicine Reviews found that looking at screens before bedtime causes at most a ten-minute delay in falling asleep.1 Ten minutes. And blue light isn’t even the main factor responsible for sleep disturbances.
Meanwhile, around one-third of the general population experience insomnia symptoms,2 and in the UK, one in six adults (16.92%) have struggled with symptoms of insomnia for more than 10 years.3
If you’ve been struggling with insomnia for months or years, I’m guessing your problem isn’t ten minutes. The real issue lies much deeper, in how we respond to sleeplessness itself.
The Blue Light Myth
I see this constantly in my work as a sleep therapist. People come to me having tried everything under the sun. They’ve bought the expensive glasses. They’ve removed every screen from their bedroom. They’ve installed apps that filter blue light. Many have spent hundreds of pounds on supplements, gadgets, and quick fixes that might work for a few days before the insomnia returns with a vengeance.
And they’re still not sleeping.
Here’s why: no clinical guidelines currently endorse blue-light blocking glasses as a standard intervention for insomnia or circadian rhythm disorders.1 Multiple studies using rigorous controls found that blue light blocking at typical screen brightness levels doesn’t meaningfully improve sleep outcomes. The research simply doesn’t support the hype.
The wavelength of light isn’t the problem. What you’re doing on the screen is.
Checking work emails at 10pm? That’s creating stress and mental arousal. Scrolling through news feeds? That’s triggering anxiety. Watching an engaging thriller? That’s ramping up your nervous system. It’s the content and your emotional engagement with it—not the blue photons entering your retina—that interferes with your ability to wind down.
The content matters far more than the colour of the light.
The Hidden Cost of Chronic Insomnia
Before we discuss why common solutions fail, let’s be clear about the scale of this problem. Research from the UK Biobank study found that whilst 29% of people self-report insomnia symptoms, only 6% have it documented in their primary care records.2 This massive gap means the vast majority of people suffering with chronic insomnia are invisible to the healthcare system.
Even more concerning: of those with diagnosed insomnia in primary care, only 1.7% had been referred for CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia),4 despite it being the recommended first-line treatment. The NHS simply doesn’t have the infrastructure to support the number of people struggling with this issue. This leaves people cycling through GP appointments, trying medication after medication, or spending money on unproven solutions marketed with fear and false promises.
Why Digital Detox Isn’t the Answer Either
I know what you’re thinking. If screens are part of the problem, surely a complete digital detox will fix everything?
Not quite.
A systematic review of 21 studies with 3,625 participants showed that effects from digital detox interventions varied wildly.5 Some found positive effects. Others found no effect. Some even found negative consequences for well-being. The disconnect from work and social connections during a detox can actually increase anxiety for some people, making sleep worse, not better.
The research is telling us something important: there’s no one-size-fits-all solution here.
Your baseline mental health, your coping style, your support systems, how you use technology in the first place—all of these factors determine whether a digital detox will help or potentially make things worse. What works for one person might be completely counterproductive for another.
What’s Actually Keeping You Awake
Here’s what I see in every single person who comes to me with chronic insomnia.
It’s not the screens. It’s not the blue light. It’s not even the caffeine or the room temperature or any of the other things you’ve been frantically trying to control.
It’s the cycle of trying to control it.
Your brain thinks it’s doing you a favour. You’re not sleeping, so it goes into high alert. It interprets this as danger. And when your brain thinks you’re in danger, it keeps you awake to protect you. This is a fundamental survival mechanism that has kept humans alive for millennia.
The more you try to force sleep, the more your brain thinks something is wrong. The more aroused you become. The worse your sleep gets. You’re caught in a self-perpetuating loop where the solution becomes the problem.
This is called hyperarousal, and it’s the unifying element in most models of chronic insomnia.6 Hyperarousal describes a state of heightened physiological, cognitive, and emotional arousal that exists 24 hours of the day —not just at bedtime or at nigiht.
Research using quantitative EEG has shown that people with chronic insomnia display elevated beta band activity (associated with alertness and cognitive processing) even during daytime rest,7 demonstrating that this isn’t simply about struggling at bedtime.
And every supplement you take, every sleep hygiene rule you follow, every gadget you buy—they’re all feeding the cycle. Because they’re all forms of effort. And effort is the opposite of what sleep needs. Sleep requires a letting go, a surrender, that becomes impossible when you’re locked in a battle to make it happen.
The Evidence for What Actually Works
CBT-I is supported by decades of high-quality research showing marked improvements in insomnia severity, sleep onset latency, total sleep time, and sleep efficiency. A 2024 meta-analysis found that CBT-I demonstrated statistically significant improvements across all these measures, with effects maintained at follow-up.8
But here’s what the traditional delivery of CBT-I often misses: flexibility and the psychological dimension of dropping the struggle.
What Actually Works
I blend two evidence-based approaches in my work: CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia) and ACT-I (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Insomnia). Research comparing ACT-I combined with behavioural components to standard CBT-I found that both approaches resulted in significant, large improvements in insomnia severity and sleep-related quality of life.9
More importantly, ACT-I addresses a core pathophysiological pathway – that thing that makes the insomnia go on and on and on – it helps people change their relationship with the struggle itself.
These aren’t about adding more rules to your life. They’re about understanding the principles of how sleep actually works, then adapting them to your specific situation. Many people who read about CBT-I are terrified of terms like “sleep restriction” (which actually doesn’t restrict sleep—it’s poorly named). Whilst these foundational elements are important and evidence-based, they can be delivered more flexibly while still maintaining their effectiveness.
The shift that needs to happen is this: not sleeping is uncomfortable, but it’s not dangerous. Your brain is working exactly as it should—the hyperarousal response is a normal protective mechanism, just misfiring in response to a non-threat. The problem isn’t that something is fundamentally wrong with you. The problem is that you’re trying too hard, and that effort is being interpreted by your nervous system as confirmation that there’s something to be worried about.
When you learn to step back, to drop the struggle, to stop treating every bad night as an emergency—that’s when sleep has space to return. This isn’t about positive thinking or pretending the struggle doesn’t exist. It’s about fundamentally changing your relationship to it.
Bad nights become opportunities for practice instead of catastrophes. You start sleeping better, but more importantly, you start living better while you’re working on it. Research shows that acceptance-based approaches improve not just sleep, but also experiential avoidance, emotion regulation, and overall quality of life.9 You reconnect with what matters instead of putting your entire life on hold until your sleep is “fixed.”
What To Do Right Now
If you’re reading this and recognising yourself—if you’ve been caught in the hamster wheel of trying solution after solution—here’s what I want you to know.
You don’t need another supplement. You don’t need stricter screen time rules. You don’t need to spend more money on gadgets that promise to track your sleep into submission. The global sleep market is worth billions, and much of it is built on exploiting the desperation of exhausted people with solutions that lack any evidence base.
You need to understand what’s actually perpetuating your insomnia. And you need someone who can help you adapt evidence-based principles to your specific situation, your tolerances, your life.
There’s hope, even if you’ve been struggling for years. Even if you’re on medication and afraid to stop. Even if you’ve tried everything and nothing has worked. The research clearly demonstrates that even long-standing, chronic insomnia can improve with the right approach—one that addresses the underlying mechanisms rather than just symptoms.
If you’d like a free chat with me about your insomnia, grab a free 20 minute call.
References
- Chang AM, Aeschbach D, Duffy JF, Czeisler CA. Insomnia and screens: why blue light might not be the only culprit. Hospital Clínic Barcelona. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.clinicbarcelona.org/en/news/insomnia-and-screens-why-blue-light-might-not-be-the-only-culprit
- de Lange MA, Richmond RC, Eastwood SV, Davies NM. Insomnia symptom prevalence in England: a comparison of cross-sectional self-reported data and primary care records in the UK Biobank. BMJ Open. 2024;14(5):e080479. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/14/5/e080479
- Sleep Statistics 2025 – How well do Brits sleep? Hillarys. Accessed May 27, 2026. https://www.hillarys.co.uk/static/sleep-statistics-2025/
- Waterman LZ, Harrison FOM, Osuagwu U, Dougan S. Patterns of insomnia and its treatment in North Central London: using primary care data to establish unmet needs and health inequalities. BJPsych Open. 2025;12:e10861. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12724108/
- Radtke T, Apel T, Schenkel K, Keller J, von Lindern E. Digital detox: An effective solution in the smartphone era? A systematic literature review. Mobile Media Commun. 2022;10(2):190-215. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20501579211028647
- Riemann D, Spiegelhalder K, Feige B, et al. The hyperarousal model of insomnia: a review of the concept and its evidence. Sleep Med Rev. 2010;14(1):19-31. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1087079209000410
- Oh DY, Park SM, Choi SW. Daytime neurophysiological hyperarousal in chronic insomnia: a study of qEEG. J Clin Med. 2020;9(11):3425. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/11/3425
- Mei Z, Cai C, Luo S, Zhang Y, Lam C, Luo S. The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia in adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Front Public Health. 2024;12:1413694. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1413694/full
- Zakiei A, Khazaie H, Rostampour M, et al. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) improves sleep quality, experiential avoidance, and emotion regulation in individuals with insomnia—results from a randomized interventional study. Life. 2021;11(2):133. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/11/2/133
