Chronic Insomnia Treatment in Norwich, CT

Six hours of broken sleep sounds fine until you've been doing it for two years. At some point you've stopped noticing how tired you are — you've normalized it. The foggy mornings, the 3pm crash, the irritability you didn't used to have, the way everything takes a little more effort than it should. You've adapted around the exhaustion so completely that it doesn't feel like a problem anymore. It just feels like you. But here's the thing: that's not who you are. That's what chronic insomnia does to a person. And it's treatable — genuinely, not just "tips for better sleep hygiene" treatable.

When You've Stopped Calling It Insomnia

The people who most need help for chronic insomnia are often the last to seek it — because they've convinced themselves this is just how they function. They've stopped linking the fatigue to sleep because the sleep problems have been going on so long. Sound familiar? Chronic insomnia is defined as difficulty sleeping at least three nights a week for three months or more. If you're reading this from Norwich and nodding, you're well past that threshold. Sindhia Shyras, APRN has nine-plus years of psychiatric experience and takes sleep seriously as a medical issue — not an afterthought.

What a Psychiatrist Does That a GP Can't

Your primary care doctor is great. But chronic insomnia that's persisted for months or years usually has layers — anxiety running quietly in the background, depression that's dampened your mood so gradually you barely noticed, a nervous system that learned to stay alert at night for reasons that made sense once and don't anymore. A psychiatric evaluation goes deep into that history. Sindhia looks at your sleep patterns, your mood, your anxiety levels, your stress, your medication history, and what's happening in your life right now. That's what leads to a treatment plan that actually works — not just something to get through the next week.

Treatment Options That Go Beyond Melatonin

If you're still reaching for melatonin or Benadryl every night, you already know they've stopped working. Or they never really did. Sindhia's toolkit is much wider. For insomnia tied to anxiety or depression, treating those conditions directly often resolves the sleep problems — sometimes completely. For insomnia with a strong behavioral component — the racing thoughts at bedtime, the dread about tomorrow's sleep — she can incorporate CBT-I principles into the plan. And when medication management is the right move, there are targeted options that work on sleep continuity and architecture, not just sedation. The goal is genuine sleep, not just feeling knocked out for a few hours.

Frequently Asked Questions