Is it insomnia if I sometimes sleep okay?

Yes. Insomnia often fluctuates. Many people have occasional better nights, but still feel trapped in a pattern of disrupted sleep and sleep anxiety overall.

Why does trying harder to sleep make it worse?

Because sleep isn’t a conscious performance. When you monitor and force sleep, the brain treats bedtime as a threat and increases alertness. Therapy helps reduce that performance pressure and retrains the association with bed.

Can anxiety and stress cause early waking?

Yes. Stress and threat arousal can lead to early waking, broken sleep, or difficulty returning to sleep. Therapy helps calm the nervous system and change the patterns that maintain arousal.

What if my sleep problems are linked to menopause or a health condition?

That’s common. Therapy can support the psychological and behavioural aspects of sleep disruption, and we recommend appropriate medical input alongside therapy where relevant.

Will therapy give me strict sleep rules?

The goal is not rigid rules that increase pressure. Therapy focuses on understanding your pattern and using strategies that support natural sleep and nervous system regulation.

Do you offer insomnia therapy in London and online?

Yes. We offer therapy in London and online across the UK.

Insomnia and Sleep Problems Therapy

Sleep problems can be relentless. When you’re tired, everything feels harder: concentration, mood, patience, confidence, and resilience. Insomnia can show up as difficulty falling asleep, waking in the night, waking too early, or feeling as though sleep is light and unrefreshing. For many people, the hardest part isn’t only the sleep loss — it’s the anxiety and dread that builds around bedtime.

Sleep is also one of the first things to be affected by stress, anxiety, low mood, hormonal changes, and health conditions. Over time, a vicious cycle can develop: the more you try to force sleep, the more alert your system becomes.

At Hampstead Psychology, we offer evidence-based therapy for insomnia and sleep problems in London and online across the UK. We help you understand what’s maintaining the pattern and rebuild sleep in a steadier, more sustainable way.

This page is for information and does not replace a clinical assessment, diagnosis, or medical advice.

When sleep problems start to take over

You might recognise some of these experiences:

Your mind feels busy at night and won’t switch off.
You lie in bed watching the clock and feeling more anxious as time passes.
You wake in the night and struggle to return to sleep.
You wake early with a jolt of worry or a sense of being “on alert.”
You feel exhausted during the day but wired at night.
You dread bedtime because it feels like another battle.
You cancel plans, struggle at work, or feel low because you’re running on empty.
You try lots of things to fix sleep, but they only help briefly.
You become very focused on “getting enough sleep” and feel panicked when you don’t.
You worry about the long-term impact and feel trapped in the cycle.

If this fits, you’re not alone. Insomnia is often a learned cycle involving stress arousal, sleep anxiety, and patterns that unintentionally keep the system awake. Therapy helps you break that cycle.

How insomnia and sleep problems can show up

Difficulty falling asleep

Some people feel tired but can’t drop off. The body is in bed, but the nervous system is still running. Racing thoughts, mental reviewing, and worry about tomorrow can keep the brain alert.

Waking in the night or early waking

For others, sleep begins but doesn’t stay stable. You may wake with a surge of alertness, start thinking, and then struggle to return to sleep. Early waking can be linked to stress, mood, or an overactive threat system.

Sleep anxiety and performance pressure

Over time, sleep itself can become the threat. Bed becomes associated with effort, frustration, and failure. The more you monitor sleep and try to control it, the more activated the nervous system becomes.

Sleep problems alongside stress, anxiety, low mood, or health changes

Insomnia often sits alongside stress and burnout, anxiety, depression, menopause, parenting demands, chronic pain, or health conditions. Sometimes sleep is the main issue. Sometimes it’s a key signal that the system is overloaded. Therapy helps clarify what’s driving the sleep disruption so treatment is targeted.

Related difficulties we often see alongside sleep problems

Sleep difficulties often overlap with anxiety, low mood, irritability, panic symptoms, health anxiety, burnout, and difficulties concentrating. Many people also develop unhelpful habits around rest and recovery because they’re trying to cope with exhaustion.

Therapy takes the whole picture into account while keeping the work focused on sleep and nervous system regulation.

Medical input alongside therapy

Sleep can be affected by physical and medical factors such as pain, breathing issues, medication effects, hormonal changes, and health conditions. Therapy supports the psychological and behavioural aspects of insomnia, and we recommend appropriate medical input through your GP or treating clinician where relevant, alongside therapy.

What keeps insomnia going?

You worry about the consequences and start trying harder to control sleep.
Bedtime becomes associated with effort, monitoring, and threat.
The nervous system becomes more alert, not less.
You may cope by spending more time in bed, changing routines rigidly, or “catching up,” which can unintentionally reduce sleep drive.
The cycle continues, and sleep feels even more fragile.

Therapy helps you step out of this loop by reducing sleep anxiety, changing maintaining behaviours, and helping your nervous system relearn sleep safety.

How therapy for insomnia and sleep problems helps

At Hampstead Psychology, we use approaches that are widely used in evidence-based psychological practice. Depending on your needs, this may include CBT- and ACT-informed strategies, compassion-focused work, and broader stress and emotional regulation work where relevant.

In practice, therapy often involves understanding your sleep pattern and the specific points where it becomes stuck: worry loops, bedtime arousal, unhelpful compensations, and fear of wakefulness. We help you build a calmer relationship with nights that aren’t perfect, reduce performance pressure, and develop routines and strategies that support natural sleep rather than forcing it.

If sleep problems are linked to anxiety, depression, trauma stress, or menopause, we also address those maintaining factors so sleep can stabilise more fully.

What to expect from sessions

We begin by understanding your sleep history, what your nights look like, what you’ve tried, and what you do when sleep doesn’t come. We’ll explore stress load, mood, health factors, and daily routines that might be interacting with sleep.

From there, we develop a shared map and a clear direction for therapy. Sessions are collaborative and practical. You’ll leave with insight that feels usable and specific steps to try between sessions, reviewed and refined over time. We keep the work paced and realistic, because sleep improves best when the system feels safer rather than more pressured.

How long does therapy take?

This varies. Some people benefit from focused work on insomnia patterns and sleep anxiety. Others need longer, especially when sleep problems are maintained by ongoing stress, health conditions, trauma, or mood difficulties.

We review progress together so therapy stays purposeful and aligned with your goals.

Insomnia therapy in Hampstead and online

We offer therapy for insomnia and sleep problems in person in London and online across the UK. Many people choose online sessions for convenience, and it can work very well when you have a quiet, confidential space.

Take the next step

If sleep has become a nightly struggle and you’re living with exhaustion, worry, and pressure, you don’t have to keep doing it alone. With the right support, the cycle can shift, and sleep can become steadier and less frightening again.

Contact Hampstead Psychology to enquire about therapy for insomnia and sleep problems in London or online.

Useful links: Anxiety Therapy, Stress and Burnout, Depression Therapy, Menopause Support, Health Conditions Support, Fees, Meet the Team, Contact.

Urgent Help

If you are worried about immediate risk to your safety, call 999 or go to A&E. If you need urgent support but it isn’t an emergency, contact NHS 111 or your GP. You can also contact Samaritans on 116 123 (24/7).

Meet The Team

At Hampstead Psychology, all of our psychologists have extensive training to doctoral level and decades of experience in their field of expertise. You will be matched with a psychologist that has the knowledge and skill to help you understand and overcome your problem - not just in the short term but for good.