Optimizing an Integrated Mind and Body Treatment for Insomnia: The SLEEPS Study (SLEEPS)

April 27, 2026 updated by: University of California, San Francisco
This single-arm feasibility trial will provide digital cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and passive body heating (PBH) sessions using a sauna blanket over a 9-week treatment period to adults aged 18 years or older with insomnia disorder.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Insomnia disorder is a common and consequential mental health problem, with prevalence estimates at approximately 10%. The American College of Physicians recommends cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), an efficacious "mind" (psychological and behavioral) treatment, as the first-line treatment for adults with insomnia. Yet, about half of individuals experience residual insomnia symptoms after CBT-I. Accordingly, researchers have sought to augment CBT-I, primarily with pharmacotherapy, but many people do not want to use pharmacologic agents due to concerns about side effects and dependence. Passive-body heating (PBH), a "body" treatment, involves heating the body via hot baths or showers, infrared sauna, or other heat sources. PBH has been found to reduce the time needed to fall asleep and to improve sleep quality. PBH may improve sleep by increasing skin temperature and decreasing core body temperature, a dynamic associated with sleep onset. CBT-I and PBH thus target distinct factors that may contribute to insomnia, and the investigators hypothesize that the combination of CBT-I and PBH holds promise as a multi-component treatment for insomnia disorder.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

10

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • San Francisco, California, United States, 94115
        • University of California San Francisco

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • 18 years or older
  • English-speaking
  • Willing to use birth control if assigned female sex at birth
  • Location to plug sauna blanket into regular wall outlet
  • Ability to lie in sauna blanket for 15 minutes
  • Ability to fit in the sauna blanket (no taller than 6' 3", no greater than 250 lbs)
  • Daily access to the internet via computer, smartphone, or tablet
  • Elevated insomnia symptoms as indexed by a score of 11 or greater on the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI)
  • Insomnia disorder (characterized by difficulty initiating sleep) as indexed by a positive diagnosis on the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 Sleep Disorders (SCISD)

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Night shift worker
  • Current or planned routine body heating practices (e.g., saunas, hot tubs)
  • Pregnant or plans to become pregnant during the participation period
  • Other diagnosed sleep disorders or suspected sleep disorders
  • Medical conditions that might increase the risk of passive body heating using an infrared sauna blanket
  • Mental health disorder that may better explain insomnia, require priority treatment, or be exacerbated by time in bed restriction

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) and Passive Body Heating (PBH)
Participants will receive both digital Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) and Passive Body Heating (PBH) using a sauna blanket.
Behavioral: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia
Digital cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is a behavioral (psychotherapeutic) intervention for insomnia disorder. Participants will complete digital CBT-I online using the Sleep Healthy Using the Internet (SHUTi) program.
Device: Passive Body Heating (PBH)
Passive body heating (PBH) is a body-based treatment that participants will complete using a sauna blanket, which is similar in form factor to an adult-sized sleeping bag (head is not within the heated area). Participants will complete at least three 15-minute PBH sessions per week. Participants will complete PBH sessions in the sauna blanket placed on the floor or on a couch (i.e., not in their bed) at a setting of Level 6, 1-2 hours before bed.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Intervention Feasibility
Time Frame: 9 weeks
Proportion of eligible prospective participants who consent to complete at least 6 weeks of at least 3 PBH sessions per week over the 9-week intervention period.
9 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of California, San Francisco

Collaborators

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Ashley E Mason, PhD, University of California, San Francisco

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

February 7, 2025

Primary Completion (Actual)

January 22, 2026

Study Completion (Actual)

January 22, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

October 1, 2024

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 1, 2024

First Posted (Actual)

October 3, 2024

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 1, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 27, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 24-41821 A
  • R34AT012767-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

The final IPD dataset will include self-reported demographic data, other self-reported data (e.g., subjective sleep measures, mood symptoms), and wearable-derived sleep data (wearable-derived sleep data will be shared as nightly aggregates).

IPD Sharing Time Frame

Beginning 3 months after the publication of results and unending.

IPD Sharing Access Criteria

Data will be accessible via the Vivli platform. To access IPD arising from this project, users must complete the Vivli data request form and sign the Vivli Data Use Agreement, which limits subsequent use to the terms of the approved request and requires that users maintain data security, and refrain from any attempts to reidentify research participants or engage in any unauthorized uses of the data. In order to get access to the data, the user must submit a valid scientific question, include a statistical analysis plan, and complete all required fields on the Vivli data request form. Vivli will review the data request for completeness. Anyone who has submitted an approved data request and signed a data use agreement on Vivli will be given access to the data. Vivli will then make the data available, without cost, to users for a set period of time. Vivli will maintain storage and access of the data for as long as it maintains scientific utility.

IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type

  • STUDY_PROTOCOL
  • SAP
  • ICF

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

Yes

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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