Dr. Gregg D. Jacobs is a behavioral sleep medicine specialist with over 30 years of experience in research, clinical practice, teaching, and dissemination in sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is one of the principal developers of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and a leading authority on the side effects and dangers of sleep medications; and, the relation between sleep duration and health. Dr. Jacobs also has significant expertise in positive psychology, behavioral medicine, and the effects of stress, emotions, and mind/body interventions on health. His research includes laboratory-based studies on the physiology of mind/body interventions, randomized clinical trials on CBT-I, and field research in the Himalayan regions on the physiology of meditation in Tibetan monks under the auspices of the Dalai Lama.
Dr. Jacobs completed postdoctoral fellowships in behavioral medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Children’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School. As a Senior Scientist at Harvard’s Mind/Body Medical Institute and an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, where he spent almost 20 years treating and researching insomnia, Dr. Jacobs developed the first drug-free program for insomnia proven more effective than sleeping pills.
His CBT-I research at Harvard Medical School was funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in journals such as the Archives of Internal Medicine (click here). Dr. Jacobs has taught his CBT-I program to over 10,000 patients, thousands of health care professionals, and major corporations such as Texas Instruments, Biogen, Reebok, Fidelity, Analog Devices, and John Hancock. His CBT-I program has been used by major insurers such as Kaiser Permanente and Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Fortune 500 companies including Raytheon, Nextera Energy, and Procter and Gamble. Dr. Jacobs is also the author of Say Good Night to Insomnia (New York: Henry Holt) which has been translated into eight languages. His work on insomnia has been featured extensively in major media including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the BBC, Good Morning America, the Today Show, Time magazine, Forbes, The Economist, and The Boston Globe, and he has been described by the Wall Street Journal as a “pioneer in the use of cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia”.
Dr. Jacobs has lectured extensively, including international lectures on behalf of Harvard Medical International and national lectures for the Smithsonian, health care professionals, and medical schools. He is the recipient of the Lawrence University Nathan M. Pusey Young Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award.