Kaitlin Luna: We can't live without it. Most of us don't get enough of it. When we don't, we get cranky, less productive, and more prone to health problems. I'm talking about sleep, of course. Hello, and welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a bi-weekly podcast from the American Psychological Association that explores the connections between psychological science and everyday life. I'm your host, Kaitlin Luna.
Do you remember the last time you woke up during the workweek without an alarm clock when you didn't need caffeine to get going? If you can't, you're certainly not alone. Most of us fall short of the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep nightly, and an estimated 50 million to 70 million Americans of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds suffer from sleep-related problems, according to the American Sleep Apnea Association.
Our guest for this episode will give practical tips for getting a good night's sleep and explain how common mental health disorders can interfere with our much-needed shuteye. Dr. Robin Haight is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Virginia who specializes in treating anxiety, depression, and sleep issues. Welcome, Dr. Haight.
Dr. Robin Haight: Thank you for having me.
Luna: We're very happy to have you on the show today. Can you explain some of the most common sleep issues you see with clients in your practice?
Haight: By far, the most common complaint that I hear is that people have trouble falling asleep. That's called sleep initiation. Most of the time, they're saying that they have racing thoughts or just not being able to shut off their brain.
Luna: How do you address that? How do you shut off your brain when it's just going a million miles an hour? Do you get up, do you change positions, read a book, turn on the TV, start texting your friends?
Haight: Well, let's back up maybe 30 minutes before all of this happens because, a lot of times, what I hear people talk about falling asleep-- and I always ask about sleep when someone comes in to talk to me about anything. I always ask, "How are you sleeping these days?" What I often find out is a lot of people have very poor sleep routines or sleep hygiene, we tend to call it, preparing for sleep, or they may have different kinds of attitudes about sleep, such as thinking that sleep is optional, not integral to mental health or physical health. I start to uncover some of these problems that happen even before they get into bed in terms of their attitudes or their sleep hygiene.
Luna: What is good sleep hygiene?
Haight: Well, again, we have to back up at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour before you really want to go to bed or before you want to go to sleep, let's say, and having a good routine that helps you separate the day from bedtime. That doesn't include watching a scary movie and then turning it off, and then you're expecting to go right to sleep.
Luna: Yes, right. That makes sense.
Haight: Things like that are going to really jazz you up or going to be overstimulating, things that are going to maybe having an intense conversation with your partner, with your kids, or things like that. Really, you got to keep that stuff in mind when you think about sleep and really being protective of your sleep.
Luna: I hear a lot about not using a screen before bed, so just putting your smartphone away, maybe even putting it in another room might be helpful. Do you tell people to really minimize screen time as you approach that hour before you go to sleep?
Haight: Definitely. Five years ago, I was informing people about this. Now, people seem to know that screens-- Now, you can buy blue light filtering glasses, so people can still be on their phones right before bed because they think that if they just filter out the blue light, that that's good enough, but I really do try to get people to get off their screens a good 30 to 60 minutes before going to bed.
The problem is, a lot of people use their phones for their alarm clock, so it's probably not realistic to say leave your phone in the kitchen, but sometimes, it's just reminding people like, "Get off your phone. Don't watch videos on your phone until right before bed or don't watch TV shows on your computer or on your laptop right before going to bed because those kinds of things really do suppress the melatonin that your brain produces to help you start to feel sleepy. It really is important to not have any close screen devices right before going to bed.
Luna: Right. You said it can be difficult if you do use it for your alarm clock, if it's the only clock in your room. You might be thinking, "I have that last text message I need to send before I go to bed," as much as you can. Just try not to have your phone around.
Haight: Yes, just much as you can. I even look at my phone right before I go to bed sometimes that I think, "I know I shouldn't be doing this but-
Luna: Yes, it's hard.
Haight: -I want to check out this Instagram feed."
Luna: Right. You think of things as you're about to go to bed for the night. When you see your clients, no matter what they come in, you asked about sleep. Can you talk about the mental health benefits of sleep?
Haight: Sleep is still not entirely understood and why we need sleep. It's been studied for a long, long time, and the research is ongoing, but what we have seen in some recent research is how sleep helps us build up long-term memories. It helps us consolidate our learning during the day or to process what we've been through during the day. It also helps build cognitive and emotional reserves. We also know that if you don't sleep, you have a lot of physical problems too.
There was a study done where animals that were deprived entirely of sleep lost all immune function, and they died within a matter of weeks. Now, we couldn't necessarily deprive a human of sleep entirely to cause them to lose all of their immune function, but sleep is so such an important thing for learning, for keeping emotional regulation. All of us know how if we go to bed and we're in a bad mood, we're thinking about something that's upsetting, if we have a good night's sleep, it may not be that upsetting the next day.
Luna: Yes, I definitely do feel like that. I feel like you have a clean slate when you wake up in the morning if you slept [unintelligible 00:07:03] of that whatever it was bothering you didn't keep you up in the night. I notice a physical feeling, which is I'm sure many people do as well. You just feel better in the morning knowing your brain just, like you said, consolidate your memories, process what you went through during the day, and you feel more refreshed.
Haight: Yes. It's mysterious, isn't it? In eight hours, you could have a completely different perspective. Sometimes, a good night's sleep even helps you think of alternatives to problems that you weren't even able to see the night before. I don't want to be like, "I'll just get a good night's sleep," and all your problems will be solved, but sleeping does help with giving us the energy and just this emotional space to allow for other options to enter our minds.
Luna: Absolutely. On that note, I did an episode in January of 2019 about dreaming. We're just very focused on dreaming. The psychologist I interviewed, Dr. Deirdre Barrett, she talked about how people say, "How can I remember my dreams more?" She said, "What I tell them is just you get more sleep. If you want to remember your dreams, you have to get more sleep. You allow your brain to get into REM to get into the really deep sleep."
She talked about the importance of that in terms of being able to remember your dreams and take advantage of what they might be trying to tell you. Given how you treat a lot of clients, you're an expert on anxiety and depression, can you talk about the relationship between depression and sleep and anxiety and sleep?
Haight: Yes. There's actually a lot of overlap in the symptoms between insomnia and the symptoms of depression or anxiety, like fatigue being one. Obviously, that's an obvious one, but loss of interest in stuff you're normally interested in, worrying, poor concentration, loss of motivation, even suicidal thoughts or thoughts of like, "I can't go on." Those symptoms can appear in both insomnia and depression or anxiety.
In fact, 80% of people with depression report problems with sleep. It's really important to tease out whether it's we're dealing with insomnia or if we're dealing with some sort of depressive episode.
Luna: What do you recommend if you are experiencing insomnia? Do you recommend that someone go see their primary care physician? Should they seek out mental health
services?
Haight: Most people wait months or even years of having poor sleep before they even seek help. They just learn to live with it, or they tell themselves — You've probably heard people say, "I'm not a good sleeper," and they think that that's an okay thing to say. They have this narrative that they just live with like, "Yes, I toss and turn, or my partner says that I wake up a lot at night," and they just live with it.
After folks have really decided that they want to address their insomnia, which for many people can take months or years for them to get to that point, I always start with, "How long has it been since you've seen your doctor, or have you seen your doc? Have you told your doctor about this?" Because I definitely want their physician to rule out any medical issues. There can be some medical issues, or medications can affect how you're sleeping.
There are antihistamines that can affect your sleeping. Some people are taking antidepressants, and that can affect their sleeping, asthma medicine, steroids, these things all can affect sleeping. It's not that you shouldn't take any of those drugs, it's just maybe you just need to tinker with when you take them. I definitely want the medical side of things to be in order so that we can start talking about their beliefs and their attitudes about sleeping and their sleep hygiene, their preparation for sleep because that would be my role in helping people to address any problems that they have with insomnia.
A couple of things I want to do is, "Are they going to bed? Do they have good sleep hygiene? Are they going to bed at a regular time? Do they have a pretty regular sleep-wake schedule?" The other thing that I would want to address is, are they getting enough light during the day? That may sound odd or weird to some people but being exposed to natural light throughout the day at least a few minutes a few times a day really helps set your biological clock. People who go from their house to their car, to a garage, to their office that may not have a window, and back again to home may not be getting enough natural light.
Luna: Especially in the winter.
Haight: Especially in the winter. Exactly. People don't tend to go out for walks in the winter. One thing I do tell people is I don't care what the temperature is or even if it's raining, just go stand outside under an awning or something, even just for 10, 15 minutes or walk around the block. It's really important because that natural light sets your brain to, "This is what I'm awake," and being awake, being fully awake during the day and having your brain register that is going to help you fall asleep at night.
Luna: Yes. What I'm hearing is that it's important to recognize that your issues with sleeping may be for a variety of reasons, and that's important to figure out exactly and drilled on exactly what is causing the issue.
Haight: Yes. First and foremost, we need to get any kind of medical issue taking care of people who don't sleep very well and who live with it may not be going to their doctor or may not tell their doctor. Once all of that stuff is squared away or is being addressed on the medical side of things, I would definitely want to make sure that their behaviors are conducive to having good sleep. Then, after the behaviors, we also want to talk about what attitudes they are having about sleep.
Is sleep optional for them or do they keep telling themselves this narrative like, "I'm just not a good sleeper," or, "My mother was never a good sleeper and my dad was never a good sleeper, and neither am I," or that having these faulty beliefs that if they have a bad night's sleep, that's going to make them really anxious and they're not going to be able to function?
They might be laying there at night trying to fall asleep, and then realizing that they're not falling asleep, and then start getting themselves really anxious about not falling asleep, which in turn makes them less likely to fall asleep. It becomes this really maladaptive pattern and just a bad cycle to get in. A lot of work I also do is in addressing those faulty beliefs about sleep and helping them to not become anxious about being anxious about their sleep.
Luna: How do you do that? Because I find myself doing that as you look at the clock. You're like, Oh my gosh, if I don't fall asleep now, I'm only going to get five hours of sleep," or you start off with-- it's like, "I'm only going to get eight hours. I'm only going to get seven. I'm only going to get six. How do you calm your mind during those moments when it's just running crazy, running a million miles a minute?
Haight: The first thing I tell everybody who tells me that they have sleep problem is don't look at the clock. In fact, if they can turn the clock away from them or turn it, some clocks have a brightness feature where you can just turn it all the way down so you can't see it. Looking at the clock and doing the calculus about, "I have five hours and 36 more minutes before the--" it's not going to help you. Even if you have only 36 more minutes before the alarm goes off, it's still not going to help you to continue resting.
Then, a recent piece of news came out just this week or last week about the fitness trackers that people sleep with that monitor how much they're sleeping and so on. I don't wear one of them, so I don't know exactly what they monitor. Actually, those sleep tracker functions have become a source of stress for some people.
Luna: Really?
Haight: Yes. Any of this monitoring is counterproductive for a lot of people to getting restful sleep, or I should say, getting non-anxious kinds of sleep. Anything we do to increase our anxiety about sleeping is not going to help you be sleepy.
Luna: You're not looking at the clock. Are there other things you could do? What other relaxing things can you do to calm your mind and that don't involve something that would stimulate you like looking at a screen?
Haight: Well, doing things like reading before bed, as long as you're not reading something too scary or too upsetting. That's something that people do that I think is very helpful, even if they just read for 10 minutes, look at a magazine, read a novel. Some people do puzzles in bed, little Sudoku puzzles, mildly stimulating but not too taxing kinds of thing. Maybe even crossword puzzles for some people could be relaxing.
Really, the important thing is to have a pretty regular schedule, which I think is hard for a lot of people, especially if you have an erratic work schedule. Some people have work shifts, and then they have to shift back on the weekends. It is a hard thing to do, but that's when using light therapy can reset your schedule.
Luna: I did a recent episode as well on seasonal affective disorder. The expert I spoke with, Dr. Kelly Rohan, she talked about how with light therapy, you do really need to be, in terms of manufactured light, not natural light outside. She talked about the importance of going through a mental health professional for that to make sure you're getting the appropriate doses and not keeping yourself up too much or being too stimulated by too much light.
Haight: Right. It is important too, I'm guessing she covered this on that episode, that you use those light devices at the appropriate time of day, that you don't use them too late in the day unless you're really trying to shift your sleep schedule. That's a different topic altogether.
Luna: Yes. She talked about just making sure you're going through. She was talking about people who have seasonal affective disorder, so it's a little bit different, but it's in relation to making sure your body's natural rhythms, you're getting your body on a better schedule so you can get up and go about your day and get out of the house. It's related to sleep, but it's just a different area.
Haight: Some people think that, for example, if they have a drink before bed, like a glass of wine or a nightcap, people used to call it, that that will help. It actually does make you sleep for a couple of hours, but alcohol can backfire, and it tends to wake people up in the middle of the night because it increases their metabolism. It really is a thing that I try to recommend people avoid before bed, is drinking alcohol, cut that off at least a couple of hours before bed. The same thing with having a heavy meal. You don't want to have that too close to bedtime because it's going to increase your metabolism.
Luna: Yes, as you're digesting. What about other sleep aids like the more mild things that you can get over the counter like melatonin or something that require a prescription, do those help you sleep?
Haight: Melatonin is a really safe thing. I do recommend that people check it out it and see if it can help them. Many people do think it does help them, and there really are no side effects from using melatonin. That's a pretty low risk. First step, if you feel like you do want to take something, a lot of the prescription medications, the hypnotics or the benzodiazepines that you can get from your physician can have-- I think that they're really useful for short-term use and monitored use.
I've seen a lot of people take things like Ambien or other sleep aids for years and years and years. You can become dependent on them, or there are those side effects where people have sleepwalking or just some other sleep problems because of the long-term use of those things. I think the doctors generally say that using a prescription sleep aid is sometimes really important if you're going through some stressful periods in your life or if you have certain medical issues that are interfering with your sleep, as long as you're just not becoming dependent on it for a long, long time.
Because actually, sleep is more important than-- It's a cost-benefit analysis in a lot of situations because if you are a very anxious person, if you're going through a really anxious time of life, it's better to have good sleep so that you can deal with the stresses and then deal with the medication later on. That's not something I can prescribe. I don't get into the prescription medications very deeply with my clients.
I try to focus on the more holistic, the cognitive attitudes that they have about sleep, making sure that they value sleep, making sure they don't become anxious about losing sleep, making sure that they do other healthy behaviors that will promote sleep like exercise. I don't know about you, but I know that on the days when I exercise, I always sleep better. To me, that's a no brainer. It doesn't take a lot of exercise. Even if you just go on a walk for 10 or 15 minutes, that can make a difference.
Luna: Yes, absolutely. For someone who might use sleep aids, it sounds like they might help in the short-term, but long-term, not a good idea, but it's still important for people to see a primary care physician or a psychiatrist, someone who could prescribe the medication.
Haight: Exactly.
Luna: It's important, as you mentioned too, you're focusing not just on the acute issue but also the thought patterns that are interfering with sleep likely. That's really important in terms of long-term success and getting a good night's sleep.
Haight: Definitely.
Luna: I want to go back to what you're saying before about the importance of going to bed the same time, waking up at the same time. In theory, that sounds great. You just mentioned some challenges people might have who work different shifts or maybe you just simply want to do something that keeps you out later in the night on a Saturday. Is it realistic to have those same sleep and wake times every day?
Haight: It's probably not realistic, actually. If you're wanting to go out with your friends and you're out until midnight or two or whatever in the morning, and you don't want to get up at 8:00 AM after doing that necessarily, I think you have to really just trust your body on these things. Your body is really going to be your best guide. Actually, people who sleep in on the weekends, even if you're not staying up late, you might just want to sleep in on Saturday morning or Sunday morning, or whatever days your weekend falls, sleeping on the weekends might actually help you catch up on the quality of your sleep even more than the quantity of your sleep.
Luna: There is a way to catch up?
Haight: Yes. During the workweek, sometimes, people are a little less restful in their sleep and they might not get the quality, the good deep sleep, that deep REM sleep that they need. Being able to have that extra hour in the morning or hour and a half on a Saturday or Sunday morning can make a lot of difference.
Luna: What about naps? Are naps beneficial and can they count towards your night sleep?
Haight: Naps are a little bit tricky because if you do suffer from insomnia, and that is a whole diagnostic thing, we do need to make sure is this insomnia, is this anxiety, is this depression, is it some other medical issue, is it medication. That's a process. If someone is really suffering from insomnia, then the naps are actually contraindicated because what you want to do with someone who really has insomnia is build up their sleepiness so that they fall asleep at night.
For the rest of us, it's fine to have a nap. In fact, a lot of research has shown that a short nap, and what I mean by short nap is a 20 to 30-minute nap, helps improve alertness and energy. The Mediterranean people have been taking siestas for eons. There's a lot of data there that having a short nap in the early afternoon is a good thing. I would say, avoiding long naps, and some people do if they slide down for a nap, it ends up being a two-hour nap.
That's actually not a good thing either because, for some people, that's when your day starts over when you wake up from that nap. Then, that's going to push your bedtime later. Then, you're going to not maybe have good sleep that night, and that can start a bad cycle if you have a very long nap, but short naps are very good.
Luna: Definitely, I've worked some shifts before where I worked an early morning shift. At first, I just cannot figure out a good sleeping schedule, so I would take a nap in the afternoon, and then I have a hard time sleeping at night. It was a vicious cycle until eventually, I said, "Okay, no naps except for Fridays," because I worked on that shift Monday through Friday. What I would do is come home and just stay awake. Especially Mondays were hard because I was coming off of a weekend, and then just go to bed at 7:30 PM. That seemed to work. I was able to sleep.
Haight: Exactly.
Luna: It is hard because it was very challenging to stay awake most days. I just wanted to take a nap, but then, when I would do that, it would throw my body off completely.
Haight: Yes, it can. It starts your day from zero. It says, "No, that's when you woke up." A short nap-- There's been a lot of research and a lot of talk about this in recent years, and I do tell my clients like, "Can you just take like a 20-minute nap in the middle of the day?"
Luna: Yes, power nap.
Haight: Yes, power nap. That's awesome.
Luna: That always helps me a little bit just to like, I'll actually fall asleep maybe for five minutes or something, and I wake up, I usually feel a lot better. Power naps. I know that not everyone can do them, but if you can, it's helpful. There are times in your life when sleeping well is likely going to be a challenge. We touched on a few of those like during a stressful time in your life, maybe a job loss, a death of a parent, or with a new baby. That's something I'm currently in right now.
It's pretty much unavoidable that sleep is going to be a challenge on a regular basis. What can you do to sleep well during these life change times? How can you get the best sleep possible given these extenuating circumstances?
Haight: Who hasn't had that period of time exactly what you're describing, having a baby or dealing with some stressful life situation? It is going to affect your sleep. We have to be able to adapt to this new stressor in our lives. Adapting to stress is called resilience. We have to really be able to build up our resilience to deal with those periods. Several things help build resilience, and that's communication. You want to really communicate what you're needing.
If you're not getting enough sleep and you're having-- especially like with a new baby, maybe you take turns waking up at night, take turns dealing with the stressful situation. You have to really set good boundaries, like if it's something really stressful. Again, this is like don't answer stressful emails right before going to bed. Don't have a stressful conversation right before going to bed. You set boundaries around that to the extent that you can, and really, looking for opportunities when you can get some sleep.
We talked about naps. If you need a nap, take a nap. Your body can be a guide for that. Also, just setting realistic expectations. You may just be walking around a little bit more tired for a little while, and to not take it another 3 or 4 or 10 steps forward and making yourself anxious and upset about that. It might just be this is the way it is for now, and it's not going to be forever. It's just for now.
Really, setting a boundary around even the anxiety, around the attitudes about losing sleep. Really, making sure if you can get sleep that you do get sleep instead of answering emails or cleaning the bathroom or checking your social media feed. If your baby is asleep, the doctors always say, take a nap then.
Luna: Right. Just being aware that perhaps, this is the time in your life where sleep needs to take precedent over other things. At the same time, you might need to just realize that it might be in short supply occasionally. I think having that mentality might be helpful in terms of calming your anxiety instead of going to the extreme catastrophizing saying, "I'm never going to sleep again," and that would probably set you up for a vicious cycle.
Yes, that's a good way of looking at it, just saying, "This isn't forever. This is the time period right now. I'm going to make sleep a priority over other things, and here's how I'm going to do it." It's helpful.
Haight: Yes and talk to the people in your life about what you need and try to negotiate how to get a little bit more sleep if that's what it is.
Luna: If you do work an overnight shift or some shiftwork that involves you being up the graveyard shift, as it's often called, how can you get the optimal amount of sleep when you're in that situation?
Haight: That is always going to be a challenge. I have actually worked with a few people over the years who've had that, not just the graveyard shift but the shifts that rotate are the worst. It'd be one thing if you work every day from 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM or something, then you could adjust your lifestyle around that, but if you're doing that for three weeks and then doing another shift for the next three weeks and so on, that's actually-- it has been shown to have severe health consequences.
Even more, the psychological consequences of that thing are things that we've just been talking about, like depression, anxiety, even dark thoughts because you just feel bad all the time. If that's your life and you can't do anything about it, how can you adapt to that? This is a stressful situation, so you're going to listen to your body even more than you may think you should, take opportunities to rest, or tab naps when you can.
Light therapy, if you really need to shift back and forth, like let's say you have children and you need to adapt to their schedule on the weekends but they'd go back to your work schedule, that might mean that on the weekends when you don't want to be awake, you might need to be mindful of being in bright light. Maybe even shifting your eating schedule so that your metabolism shifts a little bit too. Then, a nap, if you have to be awake at a time when you would normally be asleep. I think like you did, you take a nap and then you can then go on with the next half of your day if you need to be awake.
Luna: It seems like a theme that we've discussed, is really making sleep a priority and making it more of an integral part of your everyday life no matter what situation you're in.
Haight: Absolutely. Sleep is not optional. Sleep is not a luxury. Sleep is a necessity. Yet, a lot of people live for years and years with just getting five or six hours of sleep, and they get used to it and think that that's normal until it really doesn't feel normal at all.
Luna: Do you have any tips for traveling if you're jet lag? There's also a lot of jobs for people who travel and they're doing international travel, so then they're dealing with that. How can you manage jet lag and try to get yourself adjusted to the new schedule well, or do you stay where you came from? What suggestions do you have for that?
Haight: Well, if you're going to go to a different time zone for just a couple of days, you might not be able to do much about that. You just power through those 48 hours of meetings. If you're going on a vacation for a week or 10 days, you can start actually shifting your body clock to the new time zone a couple of days in advance, and it's going to be hard, but that might mean forcing yourself to wake up at 5:00 in the morning instead of 7:00 in the morning.
If you can do that, you can really improve your chances of having less jet lag and a smoother transition to the new time zone. They say it's easier to fly west than to flight east because you can always stay up later. People tend to be able to stay up later more easily than to wake up earlier. Let's say you are planning to fly east five, six, seven times zones. If you can force yourself to wake up earlier, an hour or two, like a week leading into the trip, you'll really help yourself. Also, shifting, again, your eating and your daytime activity level, shifting those into the time zone that you're going to.
Luna: Yes. A suggestion that has worked for me is just managing it, and then just maybe trying to keep yourself up to the nighttime wherever you're going and then just sleeping for a long time. It's hard though. It's really hard.
Haight: It's hard. It's much easier to say how to do it than it is to do it. You can't force yourself to go to bed at 8:00 PM if you're used to going to bed at 11:00 PM. It's hard to do that.
Luna: Exactly. Either try it, maybe even adjust a little bit before, or just wait until you're there and then just force yourself to stay up for a while. Your first day in your vacation might be a little challenging, but then hopefully, you can get a good night's sleep. Well, you've offered some really great tips about sleep. To sum this all up, it's that sleep is not optional.
I like how you said that because I think you said a lot of people like-- Most of us usually don't skimp on eating and doing other things, but like we do on sleep, but as you've said, sleep is a necessity, it's not optional, and we need to make that more of a primary part of our everyday life.
Haight: Yes, absolutely. It's flu season. Sleep helps you with your immune system. It's not that it just feels bad when you're sleepy, it makes you sick and it gives you less energy to deal with the stresses of life and gives you less ability to regulate your emotions and to think clearly and to concentrate. There's just a whole host of things.
Luna: Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time, Dr. Haight. I really appreciate it.
Haight: It was my pleasure.
Luna: If you have any comments or ideas to share, send us an email to speakingofpsychology@apa.org. That's speakingofpsychology, all one word, .org. Also, please consider giving us a rating in iTunes. You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also go to our website, speakingofpsychology.org. I'm Kaitlin Luna with the American Psychological Association. Thanks for listening.
Robin Haight, PsyD, has practiced clinical psychology in Tysons Corner, Va. for 18 years. She works with individuals suffering from anxiety, panic, depression, anger, loss and sexual issues. She also works with couples who are having difficulty with emotional and sexual intimacy. As a result, Haight partners with a wide variety of clients who want to build better paths to emotional regulation, coping with stress, developing meaningful relationships and getting out of their own way to achieve their goals. Haight has served as the APA’s Virginia representative in the Public Education Campaign, as president of her state psychological association and on various state and local committees supporting clinical psychologists and consumers of psychological services.
