146 – Herbal Support for Insomnia: My Clinical Approach to Sleep

Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast with your host Nicole Rose from the

Solidarity Apothecary.

This is your place for all things plants and

liberation.

Let's get started.

Hello. Welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.

I hope you are well.

I'm in full swing of promoting my herbalism PTSD and traumatic stress course.

So if you haven't checked it out what you're doing.

No, I'm joking.

Please cheque it out.

It is a fairly epic online course.

Eight modules all about trauma and the nervous

system and herbalism.

So which plants can support people through

chronic stress, through trauma recovery as well as this like big kind of political lens

and like different framework around trauma and then 32amazing in depth plant profiles.

So yeah, no one is turned away for lack of funds.

There is a complete sliding scale.

Yeah, you can access it for free if needed.

I only open it twice a year.

Year.

So this is the kind of current autumn window

and then I close enrolment and then it will be open for enrolment again at the end of March

next year.

So if you're interested, please don't miss out.

And yeah, please cheque that out.

I am doing okay.

I ironically didn't record this podcast when I

wanted to on Tuesday because on Monday night I'd had terrible night's sleep and that was

because I suspected that I got gluten.

Anyone with a gluten intolerance will understand this.

Some people will have gluten and then they'll just need to like sleep for a week.

For me it will like just cause basically insomnia where I just like really struggle to

sleep because I feel so nauseous and inflamed.

So that was rubbish.

So Tuesday I.

Yeah, just.

Yeah, I think my nausea is getting worse

around ovulation and it's something I'm like looking into.

I've actually booked in to see the doctor to just get some like blood tests done next week.

So that's good.

But yeah, pregnancy is wild.

As is perimenopause.

Who knows?

I'm 38, maybe I'm going in that direction, I don't know.

But I know the things that I want to ******** out.

So I just, yeah, getting that done soon.

But I'm sorry I haven't recorded a episode

sooner but I am now starting a series all about herbal support for sleep.

So yeah, we're going to be diving into kind of like different causes of insomnia and also

kind of like my approaches to it when I work with someone one to one.

Or when people kind of like ask for advice and stuff around it.

And it's probably a bit more like complex and like nuanced than maybe other people's

approaches, which is like, oh, just take this herb that's a sedative and it will help you

sleep.

Or, you know, you go to the doctor and they just like whack you a sleeping tablet, which,

you know, can be life changing for lots of people, but it's not always getting to the

kind of causes of what might be causing poor sleep.

So I'm gonna stop recording and record that now and I'm gonna hopefully be coming back to

you with a whole series about this stuff.

So we're going to be looking at the kind of

like nuances of sedative herbs.

We're going to be looking at the connections between inflammation and sleep, some of the

nutritional deficiencies that contribute to poor sleep and also contribute to things like

nightmares.

And then we're also going to be looking at

kind of like daytime nervous system support to how, you know how to support yourself through

the daytime to get a kind of optimal night's sleep.

If you are someone that sleeps in the night, maybe you are someone doing like shift work

and stuff like that.

So it might not be appropriate, but either way

I'm hoping you're sleeping at some point in the day or night.

And yeah, this kind of podcast series is all about supporting you around that.

So again, shameless plug, please cheque out the PTSD course.

I'll put the link in the show notes and yeah, thank you for listening.

Hello.

All right,

so herbal support for insomnia.

I just want to start by saying it's not just like,

for like pure insomniacs of, oh my God, I haven't slept for like five days.

It's for like sleep challenges in general.

And there is a whole spectrum of those.

So it's one of the main things people come to me for support around.

And I do think insomnia is a kind of of spectrum, but it is something that I kind of

take the same approach, like wherever we are, if that makes sense.

So people come to you wanting a sedative, but my first question is always like, why are they

not sleeping? Or why are they not sleeping well?

So there's kind of like different presentations, right?

So it might be they're just kind of like difficulty in falling asleep.

So someone might feel really, really exhausted, feel really, really tired,

have those sleep cues, but they' just not kind of like dropping into that kind of deeper

sleep or any sort of level of sleep.

Other people, it might be that they can get to sleep, but they're just waking up frequently,

or they're waking up once in the night, but it's like significant and disturbing enough

that they then can't get back to sleep.

Or it takes hours to get back to sleep.

You know, especially that kind of 3, 4am kind

of time.

It might be that someone is like getting a few hours, but they're like waking up very early

in the morning.

So they might be waking up like 4, 5, 8am or

something.

And that's just kind of like, yeah, not enough sleep for that particular person.

It might be that people are getting to sleep okay, maybe they wake up in the night and they

are able to get back to sleep, but their sleep is so light and they're so easily disturbed

that they're not getting that kind of like deeper level of like restorative sleep.

And this is super, super, super common when there's like a kind of hyper vigilance

challenge from like often from a traumatic experience around sleep.

And I guess I should give a content warning.

I don't go into like loads of like specific triggers for things.

I like this episode's gonna be like a real umbrella episode, but I guess I will maybe

like gently mention the odd thing that could be affecting someone's sleep.

And yeah, I guess to just kind of like give that warning, but it's not, you know, it's not

the main focus of the episode by any means.

Alternatively, someone might be sleeping enough hours or, you know, a lot of hours, but

they're still waking up feeling really, really unrefreshed.

This can definitely be the case,

you know, where someone's got like sleep apnea or something, which I'm going to talk about.

But anyway, so like insomnia isn't like a kind of generic category.

Like sleep challenges can be a real spectrum and they can also change.

Right? It might be one part of your menstrual cycle.

You are,

you know, waking up loads or like struggling to get to sleep.

And the other one, you're sleep loads but you're not waking up feeling refreshed.

Like there's just,

you know, so much going on in the body.

Bodies are complicated, health is complicated,

Herbs are complicated.

Ah, no, I'm just joking.

I mean they are complicated, but I mean we're

going to work through it together.

And this is why frameworks and structures are

really helpful for the brain.

And this is something that I talk about in the herbalism and PTSD course in terms of like

structured approaches.

I actually sent a newsletter out this morning

about how, yeah, how to choose an Irvine, like how to choose a herb to work with.

Um,

and again the sort of structured questions that I work through.

So if someone is experiencing kind of a sleep challenge, I will always ask like when did it

start? And for some people that's like quite a simple

clear answer of like it started after this experience or in my final year of uni or when

I left home or you know,

after a sexual assault or something.

Like there is often a kind of like specific

trigger event or there's just kind of a period of chronic stress where many things have

happened and the body's just kind of, yeah changed in terms of circumstance, you know, or

for example someone's had a baby and yeah,

they are getting more kind of environmental like sleep disturbances.

So yeah, finding out what kind of when things started, if there are potential causes in that

way is really helpful.

Finding out if it is a problem with falling asleep or if it's more of a. Like you can get

to sleep but the staying asleep is a challenge.

What time is someone waking? Can tell us a lot.

So this is again probably more in depth than I want to go in this like umbrella episode.

But we have these like circadian rhythms, right.

These like natural cycles of energy and everyone's are a little bit different and for

some people they will just feel better if they go to sleep at 1:00 clock in the morning and

sleep in later.

And then these people's really struggle with like capitalist life of having to get up at 7

for work or school or whatever.

And other people, like I'm a kind of real.

Like there's a guy who studied sleep science and I talk about this a little bit in the

course, I think I do.

But he's got different phenotypes of like

you're a lion so you wake up really early in the morning and.

But you run out of energy.

So like evening activities are really hard for

you.

And that is 100% me.

I've always struggled with socialising in the evening, but I love waking up early.

It's like my prime high energy time.

Other people,

I think they're called bears, will like be okay getting up an average time and will have

like steady time through the day, but they're not very happy with a super early start.

I think it's wolves that are like more like evening kind of like night owls.

So they'll like to kind of go to bed late, sleep in late and will have more energy in the

evening.

And then I think he's got one called dolphins, which is like if you are just one of those

people that are like kind of quite insomniacy, so you just can somehow like a superhuman run

on very little sleep compared to other people.

For example, people that might have like, you know, bipolar or things like this where

they're just kind of like.

Yeah, much, much more like low sleep needs as people.

Anyway, that was such a side tangent, but it is kind of relevant.

But what I'm saying is like you want to know your baseline pattern and go on that person's

pattern of like it has changed for them, if that makes sense.

So what time are they waking up?

So we kind of have this like cortisol time where cortisol, the stress hormone will wake

us up at certain times.

Sometimes if you're really, really stressed,

you might be woken up like 45 minutes after you've fallen asleep.

Other times it might be that you sort of wake up in the middle of the night, kind of like

3am so for example, you've gone to bed about 11, you might wake up about 3.

For me, if I.

I tend to fall asleep at like 8, 9 o' clock after my baby falls asleep.

And then if I have a very high cortisol day, I'll be waking up around like 1:30.

And that's my kind of cortisol hour, if that makes.

But everyone's quite different and interesting in traditional Chinese medicine they have like

a kind of body clock that they associate with different organs.

So I think like between 1 and 3 is like the liver hours, for example, when the liver is

like processing things like stress hormones.

So that's really useful.

And again, well, useful but very interesting

side tangent.

So yeah, finding out what someone's baseline

is is really important.

And that kind of waking pattern or patterns asking kind of what's happening in their body

while they try to sleep.

Like, is it that they have lots of racing

thoughts?

For example, is it that they feel nauseous?

Is it that they're in pain? Like, what else is going on that is kind of

potentially interacting with their sleep and yeah.

Are they feeling hungry? You know, like there's so many different

things which again, I'm trying to stay like,

like bird's eye view here.

But there are so many things that can affect

that kind of.

Yeah,

kind of sleep window critical time.

And finally, which the thing I think really isn't given enough due diligence is like what

is happening during the daytime? Like are they having a lot of like Caffeine or

stimulants, like, what are their stress levels during the day?

Like, this is literally one of the main areas of kind of intervention we have.

You know, there's like this huge focus on like sleep hygiene and don't do this and don't do

that and blah, blah, blah.

But actually it's like, what is going on in that person's nervous system through the day?

And that's always pretty much my kind of like first question.

And finally, like, yeah, what are their kind of opportunities to sleep?

Like I mentioned, like shift work and in the herbalism PTSD course I have in the sleep

lesson, I talk about ******* capitalism and how it affects sleep, right?

Like how it affects what time a carer can go to bed or what time someone has to get up for

a night shift.

You know, like, my mum,

bless her, like, eventually became like a mental health nurse.

So she was doing like shift work all the time.

So as kids we were getting like woken up,

dragged to the neighbour's house at like 5am in the morning to sit there, watch cartoons

till they woke up, like, you know,

and she was also having to do like night shifts or, you know, work in the night.

And I think maybe the Health Surface Service, National Health Service, is getting a little

bit awareness now about shift work, but it's still something that affects millions and

millions and millions of people and how long they're expected to work for and how hard it

is for the body to adapt to like a constant changing routine.

So, yeah, so I think that daytime stuff's really important and yeah, just kind of having

that zoom out, like bigger picture.

Okay. So I will always be looking at a few things.

I'm.

I've tried to break it down into four and I've

got different podcast episodes coming up with these where I'm going to go into detail.

So I don't want to go into too much detail now, but just to give you like a big over,

like this broad overview.

So when I am approaching insomnia or sleep

challenges,

my first point of call is always kind of like daytime nervous system support.

So if someone is highly activated in the daytime, for example, a lot of anxiety, being

in fight or flight, a lot panic attacks,

like high energy, high stress cycles that is gonna trigger this high cortisol, which then

will affect the sleep and kind of is.

I don't want to say it's like very difficult

for herbs to address that because it's not.

But I mean, obviously, like,

let's bring in all the ******* lifestyle changes available to Us, right.

That can reduce stress.

And I know that's really hard, but I'm just

like naming that that herbs can only go so far compared to like the stress levels in

someone's life.

But looking at daytime nervous system support, so looking at our relaxant nervines, which

maybe aren't sedative enough to knock someone out but are enough to like reduce that level

of activation in the nervous system.

So herbs like chamomile and lemon balm and hawthorn berry and flowers and rose,

like I've got a whole module all about relaxant nervines.

But these herbs can basically like take the edge off.

And I think if we can like prevent our anxiety from escalating so much that we hit that

really kind of extreme I'm screaming fight or flight level of tension, then we're less

likely to have that kind of nighttime waking cortisol spike.

So I think herbs, you know, like mother war and stuff that can help us prevent a panic

attack from like fully escalating like that will have a knock on effect into the daytime,

if that makes sense.

Also working with herbs in the daytime for, you know, in my last series I've been talking

all about like depletion and fatigue.

But if we can address that stuff, if someone

has more energy in the daytime they will burn that energy and they will feel more tired at

night.

Like there's nothing worse for people I'm supporting with chronic fatigue syndrome than

they don't have the energy to do like huge physical exertion because they feel like

knocked by a bus like every moment of the day.

So then when it gets to like sleep time,

ironically they're not tired enough to sleep well physically.

Does that make sense? And it creates this horrific cycle for people

where yeah, they haven't been able to like kind of, yeah.

Get to that point where they're tired enough.

And I'm really learning about this stuff.

Having a, having a toddler of like,

you know, he has to have enough kind of parasympathetic downtime in the day to sleep

well.

But he also has to have enough stimulation,

enough physical activity, like going to the park,

doing stuff at nursery, like running around like the field, like literally he needs to

kind of be worn out but not in a like I'm horrifyingly high cortisol way.

Does that make sense?

And I think people take kids to full time nursery, like no judgement.

I understand like Lee's, you know, in their part time but when they have that like stress

response it will often lead to bad Sleep even though they're ******* exhausted.

Do you know what I mean? So it's a balance between like, nourishing

parasympathetic kind of rest and digest time, as well as enough kind of energy usage through

the day.

So, anyway, so the daytime stuff's really, really important.

People getting enough nutrition, enough nourishment,

all of this stuff.

I will talk about this in the next episode, I

think.

But yeah, again,

I think it's just mostly trying to reduce that activation as much as possible.

Okay. The second big layer are the kind of nutritional and like, physiological drivers.

So it's not just the stress response.

It's also, you know, there are like several

deficiencies that really, really, really contribute to insomnia, like vitamin D

especially.

So it's like when I start working with someone, I'll obviously look at their diet,

look at their digest suggestions, see how likely they are to be absorbing certain

nutrients.

And if we can get blood tests done for free

from the doctor to rule out certain things, then that's obviously wonderful.

But,

yeah, so,

you know, like,

nutritional deficiencies can be a big thing, but also just like inadequate nutrition in

terms of, like, the body having its needs met physiologically, especially in terms of like

healthy fats,

enough carbohydrates, enough protein.

You know, this stuff's really critical.

Also, the timing of when we eat can really affect our sleep.

Like, if people are eating too late at night or too close to bedtime, they might feel kind

of full and satiated so that they can sleep.

But actually it's making the body work a lot in the night, if that makes sense.

So timing food stuff's kind of interesting and critical of when you're having your sort of.

Like, for me, I have my main meal at lunchtime and then I have a smaller meal around like

five o'.

Clock.

And then I go to sleep, like I said about nine.

So. And that's like mostly adaptation to toddler life.

But I feel like pre baby, I also had that pattern, like, I'm ******* hungry by like 11

o'.

Clock.

Do you know what I mean?

So anyway.

But I know everyone is different.

But again,

nutrition is really important and not having enough food can be a real ******* sneaky

culprit of insomnia.

Like, I remember being in prison and just

being so ******* hungry that I'd have to like, lie on my front.

And that was like the only way I could get to sleep.

And it was just so hard to sleep sometimes because of the hunger that like,

yeah, I kind of notice it now.

Like, if I skip a meal or like,

yeah, don't quite put the energy into cooking something proper.

I'll just kind of notice it into the evening and into the night.

Does that make sense?

Okay,

like, third big area that I'll do a podcast episode on is, like, inflammation.

So, like inflammatory processes, like where our kind of immune system or other systems

are, like, activated, can,

you know,

pretty profoundly disrupt sleep.

So, for example, say you've got like a cold or

flu or something.

Okay, maybe when you have a fever, you can be

knocked out and that can actually be quite refreshing.

But obviously you still get that, like, fevery dream discomfort.

But I mean, more sort of like general inflammation.

Like, how much harder it is to sleep when you've got bad pain.

You know, like my son, bless him, when he broke his arm, like in August, falling off the

slide, it's like he just couldn't sleep because he was in so much pain.

Like, the first week, like, it was horrendous.

Like he just couldn't get comfortable.

Obviously I was giving him pain relief, but I just mean, like, when there's like, an

inflammatory process in the body that will be, like,

interacting with our sleep much more than we realise.

Pain is a really big one.

Like people waking up with period pain or

uterine pain, endometriosis, pain, back pain, like, all of these kind of, like, pain factors

are also, like, a big factor of sleep.

And it's such a tragedy because when you are in pain, you do need quality, quality sleep

for those tissues to kind of, like, have a shot at repairing themselves.

So, anyway, I'm gonna record a whole episode about that.

Okay, so once I've kind of, like, worked with someone very holistically,

like, in terms of looking at these bigger things, like, you know, in the inflammation

bit, I'm going to talk about digestion,

but we'll then really start thinking about, like, which sedative herbs could be useful.

And there is a lot of nuance here, especially where there is, like, a trauma context,

because I talk about this in the PTSD course.

But, like, being sedated can be really triggering for people.

Like a. Especially if someone has been through a trauma with kind of sedation.

I don't want to name the things, but I'm sure you can imagine, you know, and I don't.

Sorry to name them, but I don't just mean, like, sexual assault or things when you've

been, like, drunk or on drugs.

Like, also things like anaesthesia, right?

Like, can be very traumatic for the body.

So there's a whole spectrum here for Some people lives have been so stressful that

actually even that like parasympathetic like rested response can feel wildly unfamiliar and

unfamiliar things are like threatening to the nervous system.

So yeah, it's kind of like a small and slow like approach.

Also with sedative herbs,

like there's just so much nuance to them in terms of how sedating they are.

Like are they just, are you just going in too hard with something too quickly?

If that makes sense when you know you haven't addressed all these other things.

But they can be really, really useful.

And I think they can be very powerful at like

setting this kind of like pattern.

And some people who've had long term sleep issues, like sleep can become just such a big

source of stress, such a threat that like it's just stressful managing it.

Especially if they've kind of been going down the like sleep hygiene route, which is like

quite controlled of like don't use your phone,

blah blah, blah, blah blah.

And it's like more of a focus on all of these

things and then feeling bad if you don't do them.

Like rather than like okay, what actually makes you feel safe and what actually makes

you feel nourished.

And I talk about this in the PTSD course that

like I never fcking tell my clients to like not watch trash before bed.

Like if you are a highly anxious person,

dissociating for a couple of hours, being wildly distracted, having that storytelling

which is what we seek from films, like okay, that's very different to like a dopamine like

hunting doom scroll.

But that storytelling of a movie is very nourishing for the nervous system.

You know, like my little one or he like literally wants a storey to go to sleep and

once we've done books, he then, he then wants me to make up a storey and I'll be like, you

know,

once upon a time, blah blah.

And he'll always fall asleep to it.

And it is adorable.

And I just think it's such a human thing to

crave those storeys.

So unless you have someone lying next to you

that can like talk you to sleep, it is nice to like watch a movie.

Like so anyway,

what was I saying? I've went, I've gone off on one again.

But what I'm trying to say is that like sedative herbs can be very helpful when there

is like a disrupted pattern and someone isn't in a kind of like structured routine.

So like that's when I think having that daily ritual of having an evening tea blend to help

trigger that parasympathetic process and then maybe having a few drops of something before

you sleep can be like a really, really beautiful ritual for someone because it's kind

of like signal body,

right? You need to rest now.

And we're preparing for sleep and not from this kind of like point of fear, if that makes

sense.

And also, like, when someone's actually taken

a herb like skullcap and can get a really amazing night's sleep,

sleep starts feeling less terrifying.

Like if you go to sleep and you wake up from a

******* nightmare, you don't want to ******* go back to sleep.

Do you know what I mean?

It's scary.

So it's like the more practise we get at

having a kind of quality restorative night's sleep, the less frightening sleep becomes.

And then we kind of go on like an upward spiral.

Does that make sense? But anyway, I'm going to talk about this lots

more in this episode.

All about sedative herbs.

Okay? So I'm nearly there with this like umbrella

view.

But I guess I also want to say, like, with any

kind of one to one people that I'm meeting, like, I'm also like always screening for like

red flags, right, like in terms of like,

and I'll talk about this in the inflammation episode, but maybe someone's got a thyroid

issue or some sort of metabolic issue that's affecting their sleep or they're going through

like perimenopause, you know, like there might be, not that that's necessarily a pathological

thing in any way, but there, there may be other things that we need to just like screen

out and get like medically checked out with assessment.

And the thing that is a sneaky culprit for people who have long, long, long term sleep

issues is sleep apnea.

So that's where you're kind of like your body's kind of like getting deprived of oxygen

and then it's like waking up.

And it can be really terrifying for people

around someone who's got sleep apnea.

But also it's a game, right, to get assessed.

Like, you know, you have to go to the NHS

sleep clinic, they want to measure your head, they want to put these machines on you.

Like, if you're lucky, you'll get to the stage where they might like assess you in some sort

of sleep centre.

But then it's really hard to sleep because

it's like really horrible.

Anyway,

when people have the sleep apnea machines, there's like a few different ones and they're

changing all the time and Getting more comfortable.

It can be seriously life changing for people because they've got enough oxygen, their

airways are supported, like, and that can just change everything in terms of fatigue, energy,

the next day, nightmares, like,

like allergies, airway sensitivity, like so much stuff can stem back to that sleep.

So yeah, like, I will often refer people for a sleep apnea assessment.

If you got the ******* funds and can go private for that ******* rock and roll, like,

it will be much faster.

But if you have got the stamina to go via the nhs or not even stamina, like the ******* lack

of financial choice.

But yeah, having persistence with it can be really, really helpful because it can be just

something very important to kind of like rule out.

Okay,

so I feel like I've just given my big picture.

So just to kind of like recap that.

I'm always asking why someone isn't sleeping

well.

I want to focus on their daytime changes, their daytime support.

Before we get into all the kind of like sleep hygiene, blah, blah, like usual advice.

Want to be really supporting someone's nervous system through the day, reducing those levels

of cortisol, which is like our stress hormone that kind of naturally wakes us up.

I want to be looking at deficiencies and digestive processes and other physiological

drivers, especially where there's like potential inflammation that could be

compromising someone's ability to sleep.

And then I want to like skillfully work with sedative herbs so that they're appropriate so

they have,

we have an insight to someone's kind of like, I don't need like a list of someone's

historical trauma, but I just need to screen that certain herbs are like potentially safe

and are not going to do them harm.

And that will work with them skillfully, you know, and not create a kind of dependency, but

create a like, like new restored sleep pattern for someone.

And also maybe have like a few like skilful sedatives that are kicking around in case you

have a really bad night and you just need to get back to sleep and you just have a few

drops of passion flower or skull cap tincture.

Do you know what I mean? Like, we can work with these herbs like very

intentionally,

let alone like hardcore sedatives.

You know, even things like lavender and

lavender oil and chamomile are like absolutely dreamy to support people to sleep.

So,

okay, I'm gonna stop it there, but the next episode I'm gonna do, I'm gonna be talking in

much more detail around this kind of like wired like daytime herbal support approach.

And then the episode after that I'm going to be going into the nutritional deficiencies and

then finally I'm going to be talking about inflammation and then we'll go heavy on the

sedatives.

But if you yeah if this episode has sparked your interest at all, please cheque out the

herbalism, PTSD and traumatic stress course.

I' a whole lesson in there about sleep.

I've got suggestions on tracking your sleep and making observations so that you can get

more quality sleep because it is just the number one most important thing in my opinion

in terms of determining how someone feels, how much energy they've got, their nervous system

state through the daytime, whether they can even recover from trauma because that's when

our body is like processing all of our life experiences etc.

Etc.

And yeah, yeah I think it's really, really important.

So thank you for listening.

Take care.

Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline Herbalism podcast.

You can find the transcript, the links, all the resources from the

show@solidarityapothecary.org podcast.