Fall asleep. Stay asleep. Stop dreading bedtime. Live better!
Sleep Better Lab walks you through CBT-I — the clinically validated, drug-free treatment that outperforms sleep medication in head-to-head trials — one structured, science-backed step at a time. No vague tips. Real therapy, done properly.

"I'd rather give you the real protocol and honest guidance than a comfortable list of tips that leaves you exactly where you started."
— Val (Valdas) Samonis

What you'll learn
What you'll be able to do
- Identify the specific cognitive and behavioural patterns that are perpetuating your insomnia using a personalised sleep diary and case-formulation model
- Apply Sleep Restriction Therapy — the most powerful behavioural lever in CBT-I — safely and correctly to rebuild deep, consolidated sleep
- Restructure unhelpful beliefs about sleep using Socratic questioning and thought records adapted specifically for night-time rumination
- Dismantle the hyper-arousal cycle through stimulus control rules and evidence-based relaxation techniques (progressive muscle relaxation, paradoxical intention)
- Design your own long-term sleep maintenance plan, including strategies for managing night-shift schedules, travel, and high-stress periods
- Distinguish when CBT-I alone is sufficient and when to seek additional professional support, ensuring safe, informed self-directed practice
How it works
A school that adapts to you
This isn't a set of static videos. Every lesson is generated live and tuned to where you actually are.
We learn your level
A quick placement check tailors your starting point so you're never bored or lost.
Lessons adapt as you go
Each lesson is written for your pace and your goal, adjusting as your skills grow.
Your AI coach keeps you moving
Checkpoints, feedback, and gentle nudges turn progress into a real result.
The curriculum
What's inside your school
6 modules · 24 lessons

Understanding Your Insomnia
Establishes the science of sleep and insomnia so students can accurately identify what is driving their own poor sleep.
- 1.1How Sleep Actually WorksIncluded
- 1.2The 3-P Model: What Keeps Insomnia AliveIncluded
- 1.3Your Personal Sleep DiaryIncluded
- 1.4Building Your Case FormulationIncluded
Sleep Restriction Therapy
Delivers the most powerful behavioural intervention in CBT-I — compressing and then gradually extending sleep to rebuild deep, consolidated rest.
- 2.1The Science Behind Sleep RestrictionIncluded
- 2.2Calculating Your Sleep WindowIncluded
- 2.3Titrating Your Window Week by WeekIncluded
- 2.4Managing Sleepiness and Staying SafeIncluded
Stimulus Control and the Hyper-Arousal Cycle
Breaks the learned association between bed and wakefulness by applying stimulus control rules and targeting the arousal system.
- 3.1How Your Bed Became the EnemyIncluded
- 3.2The Six Stimulus Control RulesIncluded
- 3.3Progressive Muscle RelaxationIncluded
- 3.4Paradoxical Intention and Other Arousal-Reduction ToolsIncluded
Restructuring Unhelpful Sleep Beliefs
Targets the cognitive layer of insomnia by identifying, challenging, and replacing distorted thoughts about sleep.
- 4.1The Cognitive Model of InsomniaIncluded
- 4.2Identifying Your Night-Time Thought PatternsIncluded
- 4.3Socratic Questioning for Sleep WorriesIncluded
- 4.4Completing a Sleep-Specific Thought RecordIncluded
- 4.5Building Balanced, Evidence-Based Sleep BeliefsIncluded
Special Circumstances: Shift Work, Travel, and High-Stress Periods
Adapts core CBT-I strategies for the real-world challenges that most disrupt sleep maintenance.
- 5.1CBT-I for Night-Shift and Rotating-Shift WorkersIncluded
- 5.2Managing Sleep Across Time ZonesIncluded
- 5.3Protecting Sleep During High-Stress PeriodsIncluded
Your Long-Term Sleep Maintenance Plan
Consolidates all course skills into a personalised relapse-prevention plan and clarifies when professional support is warranted.
- 6.1Recognising Early Warning Signs of RelapseIncluded
- 6.2Designing Your Personal Maintenance PlanIncluded
- 6.3When CBT-I Is Enough — and When It Isn'tIncluded
- 6.4Graduating as Your Own Sleep TherapistIncluded
Who it's for
Is this you?
The burned-out professional
Years of early alarms and late emails have wired his brain for vigilance — Sleep Better Lab gives him the clinical tools to finally power down.
The anxious overthinker
Her mind runs a full audit at 2 a.m. — the cognitive restructuring and thought-record work in this lab is built precisely for her.
The rotating shift worker
His sleep window moves every week; the dedicated shift-work module adapts CBT-I to schedules that no standard sleep program accounts for.
The long-suffering chronic insomniac
She's had bad sleep for so long it feels like her identity — the 3-P formulation model helps her finally understand what's actually keeping it alive.
The new parent re-learning sleep
Broken nights have trained her nervous system to treat the bedroom as a threat zone — stimulus control and relaxation tools help her recondition it.
The frequent traveler
Crossing time zones every few weeks wrecks his consolidation — the travel and high-stress module gives him a practical protocol for every trip.
Questions
Frequently asked
About your teacher
I have spent long years neglecting insomnia. So I know how it feels. And now I know how it feels to improve your life via a deliberate effort!
Your teacher
A note from your teacher
Val (Valdas) Samonis
If you're here, chances are you already know what it feels like to lie awake watching the minutes tick past 2 a.m. You've tried the chamomile tea. You've downloaded the white noise apps. Maybe you've read the articles about sleep hygiene, bought the blackout curtains, and still found yourself staring at the ceiling at 3:17 a.m., your mind running a quiet, relentless commentary on how tired you're going to be tomorrow. I understand that place from my long experience — the exhaustion underneath the exhaustion — and I want you to know something important: what's happening to you is explainable, and it is reversible.
Insomnia is not a mystery and it is not a life sentence. It is a self-sustaining loop — a set of behavioural patterns and cognitive habits that your brain learned, often quite logically, in response to a few bad nights, and then kept running long after those original bad nights were gone. CBT-I — Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia — is the clinical method designed specifically to interrupt that loop. It is what sleep medicine researchers recommend as the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia, ahead of medication, and it produces results that last precisely because it addresses the mechanism rather than masking the symptom.
Sleep Better Lab exists because access to proper, well-delivered CBT-I is far too limited. A good sleep psychologist is expensive, hard to find, and often has a waiting list. What I've built here is a structured, rigorous, self-paced experiencial learning that takes you through the full protocol — not a simplified version, not a highlight reel, but the real work. You'll start by understanding your own insomnia from the inside out, using the same clinical tools a therapist would use. You'll apply Sleep Restriction Therapy with careful, week-by-week guidance. You'll learn to spot and dismantle the thought patterns that are keeping your nervous system primed for wakefulness at 3 a.m. And you'll finish with a personalised maintenance plan you actually own.
I'll be honest with you about one thing: this programme asks something of you! CBT-I is experiential — you keep a sleep diary, you follow the rules between sessions, you sit with some short-term discomfort in exchange for long-term change. The first week or two of sleep restriction, in particular, can feel hard before it feels better. I'll explain exactly why that is, what to expect, and how to stay the course. I'll also be clear throughout about the situations where self-directed practice has limits and where a clinician's direct involvement is the right choice! I'd rather give you honest guidance than a comfortable but incomplete promise.
If you are ready to stop white-knuckling your way through nights and start systematically dismantling the patterns that are keeping you stuck, I am ready to walk you through it — step by step, with the science, the homework, and the steady encouragement you need to get there. Your capacity for good sleep is not gone. Let's find it again. Your life will improve!
— Val (Valdas) Samonis
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- 6 modules, 24 lessons
- AI-adaptive lessons tuned to your level
- Quizzes & checkpoints to lock in progress
- Your own AI learning coach
- Learn on any device, at your pace
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