Insomnie chronique et biofeedback par cohérence cardiaque

Chronic insomnia, despite the development of hypnotics and of non-pharmacological approaches such as Cognitive and Behavioral Therapy, remains a persistent disorder for nearly 40% of the patients. It is thus required to set up other therapeutic strategies that would decrease the insomnia symptoms and allow the reduction of hypnotic treatment. The patients suffering from chronic insomnia often present a concomitant cortical hyperarousal and an activation of the autonomous nervous system itself that influences the heart rate frequency and variability. In this paper, after describing briefly the links between insomnia and activation of the autonomous nervous system, we present a clinical case where the treatment of chronic insomnia was performed using assessment of the heart rate variability and its modification by the biofeedback technique with cardiac coherence training. Although this article is a single clinical case, it opens up the way for future studies on larger samples, which might validate the use of cardiac coherence in the treatment of chronic insomnia and also determine the profile of the responders to this approach.