This 2 min video from our 1st author Dr. Spencer Dawson in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, summarizes the unique points of how time monitoring behavior (TMB) may influence insomnia and the use of sleep aids described in our paper published in the The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders.
An additional consideration, once you have removed a timepiece from the bedroom, is whether or not you still continue TMB. After all, listening for sounds (chickens, dogs, traffic), checking for changes in outside light, or simply introspecting on things like what time it might be, how much have you slept, how long will it take to return sleep and so on, are all forms of what is called “internal TMB” as you have elected to continue wondering about time in the absence of a clock.
Thus, the big question often arising among those eliminating TMB of all types is what do you do or what do you think about when no longer attending to the time?
In my new book, Life Saving Sleep, numerous strategies are outlined to fill the vacuum when time monitoring behavior ceases.