Sleep Restriction Therapy: Compress the Window to Rebuild the Sleep

Summary

Sleep restriction therapy (SRT) is the counter-intuitive engine of CBT-I: you deliberately **cut time in bed down to roughly the time you actually sleep**, which builds a mild, controlled sleep debt that makes you fall asleep faster, wake less, and consolidate the night — then you titrate the window back up as sleep efficiency climbs above ~85–90%. It feels brutal for the first week (transient daytime sleepiness is real — mind the driving), but it is one of the most effective single components in the whole insomnia toolkit, and it is a behaviour change, not a drug. ---