Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) improves sleep quality, experiential avoidance, and emotion regulation in individuals with insomnia-results from a randomized interventional study
Open accessAbstract
Insomnia is a common problem in the general population. To treat insomnia, medication therapies and insomnia-related cognitive-behavioral interventions are often applied. The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) on sleep quality, dysfunctional sleep beliefs and attitudes, experiential avoidance, and acceptance of sleep problems in individuals with insomnia, compared to a control condition. A total of 35 participants with diagnosed insomnia (mean age: 41.46 years old; 62.9% females) were randomly assigned to the ACT intervention (weekly group therapy for 60-70 min) or to the active control condition (weekly group meetings for 60-70 min without interventional and psychotherapeutic character). At baseline and after eight weeks (end of the study), and again 12 weeks later at follow-up, participants completed self-rating questionnaires on sleep quality, dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep, emotion regulation, and experiential avoidance. Furthermore, participants in the intervention condition kept a weekly sleep log for eight consecutive weeks (micro-analysis). Every morning, participants completed the daily sleep log, which consisted of items regarding subjective sleep duration, sleep quality, and the feeling of being restored. Sleep quality, dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes towards sleep, emotion regulation, and experiential avoidance improved over time, but only in the ACT condition compared to the control condition. Improvements remained stable until follow-up. Improvements in experiential avoidance were related to a favorable change in sleep and cognitive-emotional processing. Micro-analyses showed that improvements occurred within the first three weeks of treatment. The pattern of results suggests that ACT appeared to have improved experiential avoidance, which in turn improved both sleep quality and sleep-related cognitive-emotional processes at longer-term in adults with insomnia.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
A recent study has shown that applying ACT to chronic insomnia reduces the severity of insomnia and improves sleep quality compared with controls.
“A recent study has shown that applying ACT to chronic insomnia reduces the severity of insomnia and improves sleep quality compared with controls.14,15”
From Comparison of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) for Chronic Insomnia: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial (2023) · cites this paper as [14]
The Discussion (section 4; page unavailable) reports that ACT improved sleep quality compared with an active control condition. The Methods (sections 2.2 and 2.5; pages unavailable) describe participants with insomnia and a sleep-quality measure, but do not establish that all had chronic insomnia or report a separate measure of insomnia severity. Those parts of the claim are therefore not supported by this copy. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThere is evidence that ACT for insomnia improves proposed mechanisms of change including reducing experiential avoidance and dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep.
“There is also evidence that ACT for insomnia improves proposed mechanisms of change including reducing experiential avoidance and dysfunctional beliefs and attitudes about sleep”
From Novel Treatment Based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Versus Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia: A Randomized Comparative Effectiveness Trial in Women Veterans (2023) · cites this paper as Zakiei et al., 2021
Treating symptoms of insomnia also improves symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress.
“To illustrate, treating symptoms of insomnia also improved symptoms of depression (93), anxiety, and stress (94–99).”
From Sleep disturbances and psychological well-being among military medical doctors of the Swiss Armed Forces: study protocol, rationale and development of a cross-sectional and longitudinal interventional study (2024) · cites this paper as [99]
The Results (§3.2; page unavailable) report improved sleep quality and emotion regulation after ACT, but do not report anxiety or stress symptoms. A search for anxiety and stress outcomes found no passage showing that treating insomnia improved either; the Introduction discusses ACT for anxiety disorders separately. (LLM, conf=0.76)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredA recent systematic review of 19 ACT studies showed that ACT interventions improved sleep duration, sleep quality, and sleep-related cognitive/emotional processes.
“A recent systematic review of 19 ACT studies showed that ACT interventions improved sleep duration, sleep quality, and sleep-related cognitive/emotional processes”
From Novel Treatment Based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Versus Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia: A Randomized Comparative Effectiveness Trial in Women Veterans (2023) · cites this paper as Zakiei et al., 2021
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 85 · Cited by 84
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- [42]Harris R. ACT Made Simple: An Easy-to-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy New Harbinger Press Oakland, CA, USA 2019
- [56]Hayes S.C. Strosahl K.D. Wilson K.G. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy The Guilford Press New York NY, USA 2012
- Authors
- Zakiei, A., Khazaie, H., Rostampour, M., Lemola, S., Esmaeili, M., Dürsteler, K., Brühl, A., Sadeghi-Bahmani, D., & Brand, S.
- Affiliations
- Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (IR)
- Bielefeld University (DE)
- University of Isfahan (IR)
- University of Basel (CH)
- Sleep Disorders Research Center, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah 6715847141, Iran
- Corresponding author
- Zakiei, Ali
- Brand, Serge
- ORCID
- Venue
- Life
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2021-02-09
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 133
- ISSN
- 2075-1729 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7916154
- OpenAlex
- W3126646999
- Cited by
- 84
- References
- 85
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 9
- FWCI
- 13.29
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Life (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- edoc (University of Basel) (acceptedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld (Universität Bielefeld) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and related disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Keywords
- acceptance and commitment therapy, insomnia, sleep quality, experiential avoidance, emotion regulation, group therapy, sleep diary
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
