Riana Afrianti is among those who feel anxious at night, barring her from getting a good night sleep.

"I'm afraid I can't fall asleep. Every time I can't, I become anxious, which also makes it harder for me to sleep," the 31-year-old bank employee said recently.

She said she had looked for ways to get better sleep, including two visits to a psychologist and one to a psychiatrist, who gave her anti-anxiety medication and sleeping pills. However, she stopped the medication out of fear of becoming too dependent on it.

Riana has linked her sleeping trouble to internal problems.

"I get anxious easily; that’s part of my character. I also have pressure from work, which I think is carried over to my resting time. Living here [in Jakarta] makes me feel like I have to achieve something,” Riana said.

Similarly, Sonia Alina, 35, who works for a state-owned company, has found it harder to fall asleep lately.

"I have turned off the lights and am lying on my bed. The requirements to sleep have been fulfilled, but when I try to go to sleep, I still think about a lot of things. After I wake up, I don't feel refreshed," she said.

This phenomenon is a rather recent one for Sonia and has affected her personal as well as professional life.

She reckons living and working in Jakarta, away from her family in her hometown of Surabaya, East Java, might have something to do with the situation. She goes home once a month for a weekend to meet her family and have some leisure time.

“But when I get back here [to Jakarta], I instantly feel tense and am in ‘standby mode’,” Sonia explained.

To try and overcome their sleeplessness, the two attended a sleeping disorder class organized by the Ada Di Kamu community at the Omah Wulangreh cultural space on a recent Sunday.

The class, under the supervision of Ada di Kamu founder and psychologist Asta Dewanti, sought to help participants get better sleep. The class is one session in a three-part series that also includes a class on eating and another on breathing.

In the class, the participants were asked to write down their sleeping habits, what kind of sleeping difficulties they had had lately and what kind of internal problems and thoughts they had experienced, as well as what kind of sleep they wanted.

Near the end of the session, the participants were asked to practice sleeping, preceded by treatments to soothe them with warm towels and lavender tea.

Asta said the class used a mindfulness and awareness method to address underlying causes of sleeplessness.

"We start by becoming aware of our needs; we must know why we are here: because we want to get better sleep," Asta said.

She further explained that the session included self-reflection by the participants to comprehend personal things happening to them, for them to admit that those might be part of the issues keeping them awake at night.

"This therapy is based on acceptance commitment therapy," Asta said.

During the class, Asta briefly explains sleeping disorder from a psychological point of view. She said the most common disorder was insomnia, although there were 11 types of recognized sleep disorders.

Some 28 million Indonesians, or roughly 10 percent of the population, suffer from insomnia, according to Malaysian-based sleep healthcare business Amlife.

While life in a large city like Jakarta can be stressful, sleeping troubles can be addressed without leaving town, according to Asta.

"We can get a good night sleep anywhere. As long as our self-regulation is good, there should be no problem," Asta said, adding that people should sort out their issues and face them to help them feel calm at night.

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