Behavior change project?

my bf watches a tv show or movie or listens to a sermon or something to put himself to sleep, because when he lays down his mind races, which is aversive to him, so he turns whatever it is on because listening to it focuses his mind and that allows him to go to sleep. that's negative reinforcement because he behaves to reduce an aversive stimulus, and the consequence of that increases the occurrence of the behavior in the future. he needs, for his own health (not really his concern) and for my sake (because i can't fall asleep with anything on) which becomes for his sake (definitely his concern), to stop watching something to get to sleep. really he needs to stop needing it. so i'm looking to terminate behavior, which really sucks because this is negative automatic reinforcement, i think, the hardest to work on. cold turkey is reducing the behavior, but i don't think that is the best approach. what i've been doing is reducing how long the show runs for each night, contingent on if he was able to fall asleep within that time. the point is to get his mind and body to adjust to needing it less and less, because even if he's asleep, he is still being stimulated by the noise and sound of the tv. eventually, he will be weened off of needing the something audible to get to sleep. am i extinguishing his behavior, or am i using dra or dro?Behavior change project?
I'm not 100% how you are measuring your variables. I assume television is by duration, but are you tracking the duration of sleep, shuffling during sleep or report of how his mind is racing?



You might have a hard time trying to affect the behavior by relying on consequences because there isn't a clear time when you can deliver reinforcement immediately (hes asleep!). In my experience, when you try to prevent a behavior from even occurring, you can use antecedent modifications. For example, rather than having television, you can have tea or try exercise (and then attempt to quantify how his mind races between the conditions, while tracking sleep). When you compare the effect of antecedent factors, we call that a structural analysis, rather than a functional analysis, which is a comparison of consequences.



I would look to your variables, get a good idea of what you can reliably measure. It sounds like you are trying to track several different dimensions of the issue but you could probably work with one or two. I'd simplify.Behavior change project?
Have you tried replacing the program or sermon with white noise? While I don't really follow your project, I can relate to the problem your boyfriend has as I am the same way. I found that any background noise I could focus on helped, and before cutting out noise all together I switched to white noise. Since white noise can be a variety of things you might be able to find something that you are both able to fall asleep to. I don't remember exactly but I'm pretty sure with ABA you can modify a behavior instead of just eliminating it, and this may be more effective than quitting cold turkey so it might make your results appear better as well.