REALITYWIPE

RESEARCH_FILE

Allison G. Harvey

University of Oxford / University of California, Berkeley

Known for:The cognitive model of insomnia — showing how worry, monitoring and distorted perception of sleep maintain sleeplessness.

Key findings

  1. 2002

    Proposed that insomnia is maintained by excessive negatively toned cognitive activity: worry triggers arousal and selective attention, which distort the perception of sleep and feed further worry. A cognitive model of insomnia

  2. 2003

    With Catherine Greenall, documented catastrophic worry in primary insomnia: night-time thoughts escalate stepwise toward worst-case daytime consequences. Catastrophic worry in primary insomnia

  3. 2007

    With Tang and Schmidt, showed experimentally that instructed clock monitoring causes more sleep-related worry and longer sleep onset in people with insomnia. Sleeping with the enemy: Clock monitoring in the maintenance of insomnia

Research areas

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