Washington, June 9 : People suffering from chronic insomnia can feel significant reduction or normalization of their primary sleep limits by use of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), a new study has revealed.

Lead author Ryan Wetzler, of Sleep Medicine Specialists in Louisville, Ky., says that multi-component CBT-I can even help those who have anxiety and depression, besides suffering from chronic insomnia.

The CBT-I program, designed to involve six to seven treatment sessions, helped 50 to 60 percent of partakers with chronic sleep onset insomnia, sleep maintenance insomnia or both felt decrease sleep difficulty.

And 64 of the 115 patients, who undertook five or more sessions, reported improved conditions, including sleep efficiency, average nightly awakenings, total sleep time and average nights of sleep medication use per week.

Wetzler said: "CBT-I teaches strategies to ''reset'' the bodily systems that regulate sleep. Since these systems also play a role in regulation of mood, pain and other bodily processes, skills developed through CBT-I may also have a positive impact on mood, anxiety, pain and other associated medical or psychiatric conditions."

The research abstract was presented on Tuesday at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies. (ANI)