147 – Exhausted but Can’t Sleep: Herbal Support for a Wired Nervous System

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.

So today is the second episode in a series all about herbal support for sleep and insomnia.

So if you haven't listened, please cheque out the previous episode because I give a kind of

bird's eye view of where I'm going with all this stuff in terms of things like daytime

time nervous system support and reducing inflammation and nutritional deficiencies and

the roles of, like, sedative herbs.

Like, I just kind of introduced them all briefly with a goal for the kind of subsequent

episodes to go into them in more depth.

So, yeah, that this episode will be more

useful if you listen to that one, if that makes sense.

But before I dive in, shameless plug.

The herbalism PTSD and traumatic stress cause

is open for enrolment as we speak.

Well, depending on when you're listening to

this.

So, yeah, if you're interested in that course, please cheque out the link in the show notes.

No one is turned away for lack of funds.

There is like a siding scale, including

starting at zero, if that's what you need.

And I explore, like all of this stuff in so much depth.

And I explore all of the herbs I talk about in a lot more depth, as well as things around

their contraindications, their safety things, their energetics, their constituents, clinical

studies,

all of the stuff.

They're all in there for 32 plants.

So please cheque them out.

So I have,

I have a tiny bit of time while my mum, bless her, has often offered to give my son a bath.

So I just season it to do a podcast.

So I'm just gonna ******* dive straight in.

So today I'm gonna talk about,

like, this feeling of when you are ******* exhausted, but you just cannot sleep.

And most people will kind of know the like, colloquial term, like, like when you're wired

and tired, right, you kind of are super frustrated because you know you're really,

really tired, but you just can't kind of drop off.

And I want to talk about, like, some of the reasons that that happens.

And more of these will be explored in later episodes around nutritional deficiencies and

like, kind of more like layered trauma stuff.

But like,

yeah, I guess just kind of like to start at the basics.

Like,

our nervous system isn't a binary by any means, but for simplicity's sake, people often

refer to it as these kind of Two dominant states that we dance between through the day.

So one of them is the activation of the sympathetic nervous system.

So this is our kind of fight or flight mobilising.

Take energy, take action, like high energy state.

You know, like if you were just about to get hit by a bus, you would want that nervous

system state to kick in so that you would ******* jump out of the way.

We'd grab someone else jumping out of the way.

It's like high adrenaline, blood sugar, racing

heart,

fast heart rate, like all of the things that you kind of want for survival, if that makes

sense.

And then we have our like parasympathetic state, which.

Which is our like rest and digest state.

So this is when we have much less tension and

we have the ability for our digestive enzyme flow and our muscles to relax and our

sphincters to kind of open as they need to help us,

you know, digest food and help things kind of move along in our bodies when we're digesting

them.

And that parasympathetic state can look like just kind of resting, but there's often like a

active element of it.

So I talk about this in way more depth in the

herbalism PTSD course.

And I'm butchering it out of kind of time's sake now.

But basically there's a kind of state that enables us to kind of have that downtime.

And we need some of that in the day so that we can sleep well at night.

Because it is that parasympathetic state that is signalling to our body that it is time to

rest.

And I know that doesn't always happen.

And I think people get into a pattern where maybe they only sleep when they're like

absolutely smashed.

Like when they are just like so ****** and broken that that's when they like kind of

collapse into bed rather than having this kind of like wind down time to help them sleep.

But ultimately in a kind of like.

I don't want to like impose a kind of like

healthism,

like neurotypical model on anyone, but like how the body is kind of designed is like this

kind of relationship to the seasons, right? Of, oh, it's getting dark, let's slow down.

Do you know what I mean? Let's prepare our bodies for sleep.

Like animals do that.

Like, it's kind of just, yeah.

Inherent to that kind of relationship to the land.

Does that make any sense?

So when we have too much stimulation of this sympathetic fight or flight response,

we kind of have a kind of like hangover from that in the sense of like,

that stimulation and activation and energy is like somehow still moving in us unless we can

kind of of more skillfully kind of move between the states.

And I think some people kind of like hack the system a little bit where they may be like

super, super triggered but then they do like a meditation or breath work or something and

that just triggers that parasympathetic response.

But I think for most people we're kind of like swimming around in the dark a little bit and

kind of just that process will trigger itself a bit naturally of like we'll just kind of

have to gently stop and slow down without kind of like conscious be engaging in that,

you know, like as our kind of energy runs out through the day.

But yeah, what can happen is when we are in states of like high activation, especially

where there's a lot of high stress hormones, like I don't mean just like day to day

busyness, which is also often,

you know, the consequence of this nervous system state.

But I mean like you're triggered, you're getting into fights, you're ******* having

panic attacks, like that really high intense like survival fight flight energy, like it

does kind of wreak havoc on us physiologically.

And I explore that in the herbalism PTSD course in much more depth.

And that's the kind of like tragedy of trauma of like some of us can be stuck in that kind

of triggered state for a really ******* long time.

And that's why it's amazing to work with plants, because they can help us trigger a

like parasympathetic state.

Not just kind of taking them, but just being

around them.

Medicine making, foraging, like all of these

like wholesome things.

But what we're kind of thinking about when someone is experiencing like insomnia or sleep

challenges is like I'm always thinking about what is going on for them in the daytime

because that's going to have a consequence for the nighttime.

Right? And I see this all the time with my toddler,

bless him, like in terms of like that dance between like having enough parasympathetic,

simple like gentle time versus like overstimulation at like soft play or nursery

or whatever.

And he needs to you know, wear himself out in

different places.

But there's a kind of difference between like

movement and like adrenaline.

Does that make sense? So anyway, so I'm always thinking about where

are we starting in the morning?

And that's kind of where the herbal stuff comes in.

But before I talk about that, I wanted to kind of talk about the other like mechanisms where

that kind of wired but Tired state comes from.

So obviously the kind of sympathetic activation is like, a critical part and the,

you know, the stress hormones picture.

But, like,

there is also an element of, like,

I don't know if it's like, just neurodiversity or if it's like,

just the world we live in and how overstimulating it is.

But, like, there is an element of, like,

being really tired but having a lot of ******* racing thoughts.

And I think racing thoughts are kind of like a challenging nervous system state, because

sometimes it does feel like that's just someone's kind of constitution.

Like, they're quite kind of, like, airy, if that makes sense, and intellectual and will

kind of have that thinking pattern of, like, overanalyzing.

Like, I remember being with a herbalist in Calais who had really bad insomnia and she'd

had it for years.

And, like, she was basically trying to figure out if she should break up with her husband or

not.

And it kept her up for ******* years.

And she was like.

She's like, how do you sleep so well, Nicole?

Blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, well, because I'm thinking

about, do we have enough bandages for tomorrow?

Do I need to buy more kitchen roll from the supermarket?

Like, I'm thinking about very, like, mundane, practical things because that's kind of how my

brain is.

But when you're in that, like, kind of

emotional turbulence where you're, like,

making a big life decision, like, that kind of stuff does keep you up, right?

And I think there's an element of, like,

herbs can't really help with that other than.

I mean, Passion Flower is amazing for that

kind of, like, mental racing energy.

But I just mean that, like, sometimes what's

keeping us awake are actually things that our nervous system needs us to address in our

lives.

And often it's not until the end of the day, when we actually have time and space to think

about something, that our nervous system actually has the opportunity to, like, start

processing our feelings.

And our nervous system is ultimately there for survival.

Right.

Like, I've got a whole email series.

In fact, I put it as a podcast as well, called Soothing Survival, where I talk about the

different nervous system states and how we judge them as good or bad.

But really, like, they are all serving a function of, like, trying to keep us alive,

trying to keep us safe, trying to keep us in the familiar, trying to heal and process

what's happened, but also, you know, like, not always knowing how to do that, like, all of

these things.

But, like,

yeah, sometimes we are not Sleeping because there is like something that is like a

survival need.

And I think unfortunately, like financial

anxiety, for example, used to be something that would just keep me up so much as a kind

of like survival mechanism.

Like I need to solve this problem.

And I think that's very similar for lots of people in kind of acute, you know, situations

or dangerous situations where someone's trying to get out of it or change their life or

whatever.

So that's why like the herbal stuff can never be separate from like the collective,

like structures and systems that like generate trauma.

Does that make sense?

Okay, you're probably like, get to the ******* herbs.

Okay. So that's like two things.

So high,

like sympathetic activation through the day and then racing thoughts as a kind of survival

related pattern.

The other thing I had on my list was kind of like muscle tension and like vigilance, which

is a kind of obviously is like a nervous system state, but can accompany multiple

nervous system states.

But for me I kind of see this as something kind of like different in terms of the body

and the enable.

Like what, what will enable someone to kind of

like switch off and relax.

And I think, for example, if you're in prison,

the night times are really ******* hard because that's when you hear the officers

walking around, that's when like girls start trying to like kill themselves.

And you hear the screws respond to that.

And in a way you're kind of semi safe because the door sucked, but you're also unsafe

because you can't do anything about it.

And you're like kind of literally frozen in a

room.

So like,

and you know, that's like obviously quite captivity is just like inherently traumatic,

but like that kind of like hyper vigilance, like it is an activation of the sympathetic

nervous system, but it's a bit different to just like having loads of adrenaline in your

system.

It's like much more of a holding pattern.

And again, that's where we can't separate like

nervous system stuff from reality, right? Of like what is keeping you in that holding

situation.

Like especially if you're in unsafe housing or in an unsafe environment, or processing having

gone through something awful like sexual assault in your sleep or something, like all

of these things will kind of create that pattern.

And that's where we want to work with daytime nervous system relaxants.

But like, if someone has that really kind of like tense constitution as a result of trauma,

like it might be where antispasmodics with a lot of nuance here could be really helpful in

terms of relieving Some of that muscular tension,

like skull cap is ******* beautiful for like kind of relaxing that tense nervous system

state.

But as I talk about all the time, there's

loads of nuance here of like,

I don't want to like trigger that feeling of being sedated.

And like, sometimes someone just needs to like build up their sense of safety much more

before they can like really learn to release.

Does that make any sense?

Okay,

so yeah, so I've mentioned about like the hyper vigilance, but also I just want to name

that like the nighttime just can be a traumatic time for people for all sorts of

reasons in their life.

And that's why in the like herbalism PTSD course I have a module where I talk about

plant medicines.

But I also introduce like a bunch of other

kind of trauma healing related modalities like trauma releasing exercises or edmr.

Because I think like plant medicines are one tool in the toolbox, right?

And to process kind of traumatic memories and create a kind of new pattern in your body,

like that does need like skilled support from other people.

And you know, it's like a whole other ball game to just kind of working with herbs.

So yeah, everything is kind of connected and I hope I'm not being too,

too like over detailed with this stuff, but.

Okay. And then there's just kind of like baseline sensitivity and like sensory

sensitivity.

Like sometimes people are wired but tired

because they're hearing like noises or they're in a new place.

Like how many times do you go to a new place and you just can't sleep the first night?

And I think that's kind of just normal.

Like I think that's the nervous system like

scanning the environment for threats and then just like evaluating if it's safe or not.

So there's like lots and lots of things and I know like neurodivergence brings in just like

next level sensory sensitivity, stuff that like is a whole other ball game.

And ******* hell, I would love, love to like work with some herbalists around that in terms

of learning from them because I feel like,

yeah, it's just kind of, we are kind of taught herbalism in like such a neurotypical way.

And then you get to know people when you just see the kind of like wild differences of

reactions to herbs and stuff.

So if that's you hit me up.

Okay, so why does this look like practically like, I guess for me my sort of statement

around this is that basically like sleep support like begins when we wake up.

So like our kind of cortisol cycles and Our circadian rhythms do kind of kick in around

certain times of day.

And I hate to say it, but if someone is, like, sleeping in till quite late,

that might kind of suit their pattern and their lifestyle and their job and everything

else.

But, like, it can like about with your

rhythms.

So sometimes it is a case of, like,

starting your day a little bit earlier so that you have a bit longer to get tired, and then

you kind of sleep at a kind of, like,

time that's a bit more, like, aligned with your digestion and everything else.

Does that make sense?

But what we're kind of looking at with relaxant nervines is, like,

how do we support someone through the day? And you've heard me talk about this if you've

listened to episodes before, but, like, I call it, like, toning it down by, like, 10%.

Like, and I think herbs can do way more than 10%, but 10% difference in how activated you

feel might be the difference between a panic attack and not having a panic attack.

And having a pan attack will probably mean that you have a bad night's sleep because

you're ******* racing full of adrenaline.

Not having a panic attack might mean you get a

better night's sleep, which might mean you don't,

you know,

tip into ******* psychosis or something, which is, like, a real threat with, like, hardcore

insomnia.

And I should stay at the beginning of the

series.

Like, it is a spectrum and my approaches

really are, like, person specific because everyone has different drivers of what is

causing their insomnia.

And that's something, you know, I'm obviously trying to explore through these different

episodes.

But, yeah, working with nervous system relaxants through the daytime, which, in the

herbalism PTSD course, there's a whole module about relaxant nerve iron.

So these are herbs that kind of reduce the activation of the sympathetic nervous system.

But ideally they're not too sedating.

But annoyingly, they can still be too sedating for some people.

So it's a bit of a dance.

But herbs like lemon balm, for example, or

chamomile,

hawthorn berry and flowers, I think is a fantastic nervous system.

Like nervine kind of daytime relaxant that I love to work with.

And then there's herbs that kind of, like,

can kind of, like, be in your back pocket for, like, acute moments of anxiety.

Like, I love.

I like motherboard and rose glycerite mix.

Oh, it's dreamy.

Motherwort tincture, rose petal glyceri as a, like, panic attack blend.

Dreamy. Like, people have just Told me how much it has helped.

Like they've taken it after like counselling or therapy sessions or kink sessions, whatever

floats your boat.

And they will be like on the edge of a panic

attack and then take a few drops and you know, their heart will not race as much.

And it all just sort of prevent that full blown escalation to overwhelm.

And I think that's kind of where we're going.

But then there's also all the like nerve tonic stuff, right?

And I've had, I did a whole, I've didn't like several episodes or nerve tonics, but really

kind of like nourishing the nervous system so that it's kind of like you know, functioning

well.

There's like enough nutrients in there, things are communicating, bouncing around properly.

Like all of that stuff will fundamentally support someone to sleep better ultimately.

Like that's kind of my approach.

So herbs like milky oats for example or oat straw like in an infusion is *******

wonderful.

Or like skullcap is like a sedative herb that

I work with mostly in the nighttime.

But it's also a like fantastic nerve tonic in terms of like this super reparative long term

healing, like full of B vitamins,

loads of research around it and like its effect on neurotransmitters and stuff around

myelin, myelination and like all of this stuff.

Like it's very interesting hub.

So that's kind of where I'm going.

But I don't tend to work with Skullcap in the daytime because I just.

Yeah, it's like way too sedating for me.

And then like the other kind of daytime picture is like what are you doing to like

prepare for sleep? And I think people think that preparing for

sleep starts like an hour before bedtime.

Like that's the kind of like sleep hygiene approach.

But like, oh my God, it's like so much sooner than that.

Like it's about kind of timing what time you have a meal maybe like what type of meal.

Like is it kind of like heavy, like too heavy for the nighttime?

Is it too stimulating? Is it potentially a bit gassy?

Like all of these things are like factors and like where are you getting that kind of

parasympathetic time in the day? Like I used to find, like I ******* hate it

when organiser type events,

political events, like they're always in the evening and I understand about full time work,

do you know what I mean? I get it.

But like my PTSD would just go through the roof doing these evening events or Even an

evening meeting where it's like blah, blah, blah, prison and repression.

And then I just wouldn't be able to sleep because I wouldn't have that parasympathetic

like downtime to then like successfully get to sleep.

Does that make sense? So it's like thinking about how you structure

your day of like labelling that rest kind of time and like if you do have an event in the

evening,

then like just timetabling a little bit longer in the afternoon so that you can have a bigger

meal and have like an hour to digest it.

And I know people will be listening to this

like laughing, thinking, that's like not possible for them.

But like,

you know, sleep deprivation is really serious and like any sort of modifications that are in

your control I think are really, really important.

And it's probably like my main area with my clinical practise where I become a bit of a

dom because I'm just like herbs can't match a good night's sleep,

they just can't.

So let's get people sleeping.

And also in terms of daytime stuff, I'm going to talk about this next time in more detail.

But like planning your meals of when you're going to eat and what you're going to eat kind

of will,

if you're having sleep challenges is also really important.

So actually I will save that for next time.

But finally, yeah, so having enough parasympathetic time in the day and I often

give my clients like a evening like nerve nourisher tea which I encourage them to kind

of like have when they're sort of work day or like main chunk of the day kind of ends.

So that includes a tiny bit of skull cap but also chamomile.

Excuse me.

See, I'm hitting my parasympathetic desire

time.

Yeah, that will include skull cap,

a little bit of,

sorry, a little bit of skullcap,

oat straw, chamomile and like a dash of lavender.

Oh, and it is dreamy.

And again that tea might put some people to

sleep straight away.

For other people it's more likely to just

trigger this kind of evening wind down ritual.

And I find that rituals are really, really important in kind of telling the body to

prepare for bed.

You know, like with my toddler, like I will

close the curtains in the caravan, put a nice lamp on, like we'll just kind of wind down.

Like I mean to be fair, he will like watch trash or whatever while I do some chores

before bed.

But then you know, we'll do like we'll have A

soft light in the bedroom.

We'll do like,

like books and then we'll have some milk and like a little storey, maybe some songs.

And it's like.

It's just giving him these cues over several

hours, to be honest, that, you know, we are preparing for sleep.

And I think if we had lives where we were like, embedded in the land, we would get those

natural cues, you know, like the sun is setting and the birds are chirping and, you

know, we're preparing our bodies for rest.

Like, all of that stuff is just like there right in the universe.

But we kind of have to, like, resist the like,

modernity of just like bright lights and like, hyperstimulation and like all of this.

But yeah, if you can work with herbs to like, create a nice, nice evening ritual for

yourself, if the evenings are like a possible time for you.

I know it's really difficult when you're a parent.

And like, Lee now will be like, if he has an afternoon nap, like, his wake windows are so

long that he won't go to sleep till like, 8, 9 o'.

Clock. And I'm just like, completely broken.

Like, there's no parasympathetic time there

for me.

Like, I just.

As soon as he's asleep, I'm out.

And it's very annoying because I need to work

in the evenings often.

But, you know, when he doesn't have a nap and then he'll go to sleep early and then I'll get

like.

You know, it feels so, so luxurious to just

like,

work on my phone a little bit.

Like work on the frontline hub, there's a

membership and then I'll have time to watch a movie and then I can go to sleep.

And it's like, wow, I'm like, so recharged with this parasympathetic time.

But basically what I'm saying is you can integrate herbs into your kind of, like, daily

pattern to, like,

communicate to your body that it is preparing for sleep.

I don't know if you've got hardcore insomnia, it's going to be like, off.

Nicole, like, I don't believe you, but I do think, think if you've got hardcore insomnia,

like, the other episodes will kind of maybe be a little bit more revealing because there are

just like so many other factors that people aren't aware of.

Okay, I think I've stopped blathering on now.

What I'm basically, the short version of this half an hour is stress in the daytime affects

our ability to sleep.

We need parasympathetic time to wind down, to

communicate to our body that it's time to sleep.

We can work with herbs to reduce those levels of activation in the daytime to, to prevent,

like, hardcore overstress, overstimulation, like panic attacks, things like this.

And then we can start potentially working with things like sedative herbs for the actual

getting to sleep process.

And I will record a whole episode about that

too.

But yeah, I'm going to stop talking now.

And please cheque out the herbalism PTSD and

traumatic stress course.

I've got a whole lesson in there about sleep

where I talk about how to track and observe your sleep, how to work with sedative herbs

safely,

how to support your nervous system through the day with relaxant nerve ions, with nerve

tonic,

with cardiac nerve irons, with all the ******* nerve irons.

32 nervines coming out of the course.

Sorry, I'm in a really weird mood.

Anyway,

thank you for listening.

Yeah, please, please cheque out the course if you can.

Okay, 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.