A meditation app can be useful during the day, but using one in bed may work against the habits an insomnia treatment is trying to establish. That tension is among the practical issues explored in the October 19, 2026 episode of the Being Well Podcast, in which host Forrest Hanson speaks with clinical psychologist and sleep researcher Dr. Ashley Mason about cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I.
Mason is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. She directs the Sleep, Eating, and Affect Lab and leads an insomnia treatment program at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Health. The conversation focuses on why persistent insomnia involves more than simply getting too few hours of sleep, and why well-intentioned efforts to force sleep can become part of the difficulty.
One distinction in the episode is between the amount of sleep a person gets and the experience of lying awake, monitoring the night and worrying about the next day. Mason and Hanson discuss how insomnia develops and the patterns that keep it going. That framing moves the discussion away from treating every difficult night as a problem requiring another calming technique.
The episode sets out the five pillars of CBT-I and examines what treatment looks like in ordinary routines. Its practical subjects include keeping a consistent wake time, changing the amount of time spent in bed, reconsidering caffeine timing and responding to anxious thoughts in the early hours. Mason also discusses sleep tracking and the pressure created when sleep itself becomes another performance target.
Particularly relevant to mindfulness and wellness practitioners is the section on relaxation and meditation apps. The issue is not that meditation is inherently unsuitable for people who struggle with sleep. Rather, the conversation distinguishes general relaxation practices from the behavioral aims of insomnia treatment. Bringing a phone, a guided exercise or another task into bed can complicate the effort to rebuild a clearer association between bed and sleep.
That is an important boundary for coaches and meditation teachers who may be accustomed to recommending breathing exercises whenever someone reports stress at night. Persistent insomnia is a clinical concern, and a meditation suggestion should not be presented as equivalent to evidence-based treatment. The episode offers a reason to ask what a practice is meant to accomplish and where it fits within a person’s wider routine.
The discussion also covers alcohol, thoughts that arise at 2 a.m., and Mason’s research interests in sleep and mood. Its central professional insight is modest but useful: when sleep becomes a struggle, doing more to make it happen is not always the same as helping.
Source: Being Well Podcast, Rick Hanson website, October 19 episode
Web: https://rickhanson.com/being-well-podcast-how-to-fix-insomnia-cbt-i-with-dr-ashley-mason/
