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CBT-I Cognitive Restructuring: Part 4 — Emotional Reasoning The final cognitive distortion we explore this week in CBT-I is emotional reasoning — the belief that your emotions reflect objective truth. In the context of sleep, emotional reasoning might sound like: “I feel exhausted, so I must not have slept at all,” or “I feel anxious, so I just know tonight will be another bad night.” The problem? Our emotions — while valid — aren’t always accurate indicators of reality. This way of thinking can: • Reinforce negative beliefs about your sleep • Lead to misinterpreting sleep quality • Increase frustration and helplessness Through CBT-I, we learn to pause and separate feeling from fact. A more balanced thought might be: “I feel tired now, but that doesn’t mean I got no sleep — fatigue can also come from stress or disrupted sleep patterns.” This shift creates space for clarity and calm, rather than spiralling into assumptions — which helps reduce the emotional weight around sleep. That wraps up the four main distortions we target through cognitive restructuring. If you’ve seen yourself in any of these, know that change is possible — and it starts with awareness.