Many of our sleep experts can institute psychodynamic therapies which include progressive relaxation therapies, stimulus control therapies, behavior modifications, cognitive therapies, self-hypnosis and even recommend things as simple as a warm glass of milk before going to sleep if this is something that is psychologically pleasing to the individual and agreeable to their digestive system to improve sleep in such a situation. I will repeat a full sleep diary and history and physical is the basic fundamental starting point from which all sleep experts frequently begin. So, I don't want to oversimplify your situation or its therapy but at least give you a general idea of what sleep experts often recommend. There are many medications. Many of these medicines have been shown to be relatively safe when taken for less than a three-week period to help break the cycle of Psychophysiologic, that is conditioned insomnia where a person has essentially developed a tendency to expect having a bad night of sleep in their normal sleeping environment due to a variety of potential causes and they simply need to break the cycle.
Conditioned insomnia can be the result of multiple causes.
In an attempt to simplify this problem, I will refer you to Pavlov's dog, with the steak and the bell. If you take a dog and present it with a big steak, hundreds, maybe thousands of times and condition that presentation with the sound of a bell, hundreds, maybe thousands of times, eventually the dog will slobber and become hungry if only the bell is rung. If you have a life trauma, for example, the loss of a loved one, that psychological stress can produce a short-term insomnia. If that stressor and the poor sleep is not adequately addressed in some individuals, after a while, the person will associate the bedtime going to sleep with the trauma long enough that they may continue to have insomnia long after their loved one has passed away. While I have always had sleep problems, they seem to be more pronounced now.