149 – Inflammation and Insomnia: Herbal Support for Better 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.

How are you doing?

Sorry, I wanted to get this episode out sooner but I basically gave myself a sore throat from

recording too many podcasts.

I had another interview for a different show

and I've been recording a few bits and bobs for the Herbalism and PTSD and Traumatic

Stress podcast for people enrolled in the course.

They can now listen to the lessons via a like private podcast player.

But there were just like a few things I needed to record, like a new like kind of updated

welcome and like things like the Hubble Actions glossary.

I wanted to do an audio of that.

So anyway, so my poor little voice has been a bit sensitive.

Hope I'm not getting a cold.

I'm just between the land of germs, between

nursery and my ex's rehab which is like institution full of humans.

So yeah, it's tough graft but I'm doing my best.

I don't think I've got a sore throat.

But anyway, I am gonna do my best today.

Shameless plug again.

But the Herbalism PTSD and Traumatic stress

course is open for just over another week.

So yeah, please don't miss the chance to join if you're interested.

It's been really lovely welcoming people in.

Could definitely do with a few more

enrollments.

So if you're able to share it on your

networks, I would just appreciate it so, so much.

You have no idea how much it helps.

I just sent a newsletter out this morning with

a rundown of what the course funds in terms of like what the course contribution funds in

terms of distributing prisoners herbal books around the world and paying for all the herbal

care packages and the one to one like clinical herbal support through the Black Flag Herbal

Clinic.

And yeah, just like all the things.

So it is really, really, really vital to the Soldier Apothecary.

And it's also just a banging course.

Not going to lie.

So yeah, please check it out if you can.

Okay, so continuing on the herbalism and sleep support theme, I've obviously given this kind

of bird's eye overview to my like approach to sleep.

And then I recorded an episode about like nervous system support and sleep and how it

kind of starts in the daytime.

And then yeah, earlier this week I did one on nutritional deficiencies and their sort of

potential roles in not just like potential insomnia or sleep issues, but Just kind of

like nervous system stuff in general.

And today I'm going to talk about inflammation.

Okay. So I'm just going to get stuck in.

But basically inflammation is just like a

******* catch all term, right.

And can mean so many ******* things.

But just to kind of frame it for the, for the

episode, for this context, I'm just kind of talking about when our immune system is

activated in response to something.

So that could be like an infection or an injury or some sort of tissue damage or just

like other kind of perceived threats.

And it can involve all sorts of tissue

symptoms and, you know, organs in the body.

But it's kind of, yeah, looking at immune system activation in terms of immune cells and

prostaglandins and other sort of mediators of inflammation and yeah, how inflammation isn't

like inherently bad,

like it is necessary.

So when my little baby boy broke his arm in

August or end of July,

the first week was ******* hell in terms of watching him being in pain and being inflamed

and you know, like the first couple of days, like his arm was like super swollen, which is

like completely normal.

I mean there is like a fine line between what's normal and what's not.

But that inflammatory process was what was healing the fracture.

Right.

So inflammation is like generally like a good

thing in terms of the body is responding to something.

But I'm very aware that things can go wonky, very clinical term there.

But inflammation can become kind of chronic.

And sometimes that's because the kind of

causes of it haven't been addressed, which is mostly the main reason, to be honest.

But other times it's because our kind of immune systems have become disordered.

And often that's a response to kind of like some sort of mechanism in our environment,

like triggering that like autoimmunity.

So yeah, it's a very, very, very complicated.

There's lots of different inflammatory processes.

It's a big spectrum.

You know, it might be having like inflammation in your nasal passages because you're

responding to something you're allergic to in your environment or something that's like

triggering your nose and that's why you're not sleeping.

Right.

Or it could be more like chronic pain.

And I'm kind of like skipping a ahead here.

But yeah, I guess what I want to talk about

today is kind of like how do all the nuances of inflammation, not all of them, that would

be mammoth.

But many of the kind of patterns of inflammation, like how do they affect sleep?

Because often,

especially when we experience anxiety,

I find people are very easy to put everything down as anxiety of like,

oh, it's my ptsd or da, da, da.

This is why I'm not sleeping.

And yes, 100.

I talk about it to death.

The nervous system majorly affects all the different things in the body.

But also,

maybe you're reacting to gluten.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, maybe there's like, some sort of autoimmune pattern that we haven't picked up

in your blood test.

Like, maybe there's an underlying state of

disease that hasn't been identified, which is, like, actually contributing to the

inflammation, which is then kind of like as a side effect,

creating insomnia.

Does that make sense?

Or just, like, sleep challenges?

Oh. So, yeah, anyway, sorry.

I feel like I'm going to be bouncing around,

but I'm gonna do my best to kind of go through my bullet points.

Okay,

So I have.

Yeah. So I guess what I'm trying to do with this series is like,

not just default.

Any sleep problems equals a sedative Herb.

Because there are many, many drivers of poor sleep, including, obviously the nervous system

stuff.

But it might be something that is going on in the body.

So if you're a herbalist or you're just trying to, like, DIY it, support yourself.

I'm always asking, like, what is actually waking them up?

Like, are they waking up because their bladder is irritated from some sort of chronic

infection or chronic inflammation and that's what's making them need a wee, like, 10 times

in the night?

Or they're waking up because they have really bad joint pain every time they turn over.

Or maybe the menstrual cramps are, like, so ******* severe that that is, like, enough to

kind of trigger the body to wake up.

You know, maybe someone is getting, like, acid reflux when they lie down and that's

preventing them from sleep.

Maybe their psoriasis is so bad that that is

keeping them awake because they are inflamed and in pain,

or they have eczema and they're itching you.

You know, like a digestive symptom could easily keep someone awake, you know, in terms

of feeling really bloated or feeling really crampy or really constipated or, you know,

super loose and needing to get up and empty their bowels.

Like,

so many things can affect someone's sleep,

let alone that kind of, like, acute illness stuff, you know, like when you have a fever or

like, I see it in my little one when he's having a bad teething day, just how it wakes

him up in the Night and how sort of distressed he is when he wakes up and how much harder it

is to settle.

The other example I thought about was like allergic kind of symptoms.

So I'm a very like, allergicy person in the sense of like, I have this severe allergy to

the pumpkin family, which is a pain in the ***.

I literally carry an EpiPen around.

The last time I had a bad reaction was actually when I was in Palestine and I found

out they put squash in ******* falafel mixes, which basically stopped me eating out for the

rest of the trip.

But I ended up on like a ******* drip in Ramallah just from having this massive

allergic reaction.

So, yeah, and I know like, there's all sorts

of different immune system,

kind of like iga, blah, blah, blah, reactions to different allergies.

So there is that kind of like anaphylaxis level allergic response.

And then there's a more kind of like,

you know, like different activation in the immune system, for example, to a food

intolerance.

You know, like, if I have gluten, for example,

I don't need to take antihistamines.

But if I suspect that I've been gluten, as I call it, after eating out somewhere,

I'll feel ******* ****.

I won't be able to sleep.

I'll feel really inflamed.

Like, you know, I don't tend to get as many GI

symptoms, but I will feel that feeling that like my body is resisting like an invader.

Which sounds really crazy, but when you have had your immune system be activated like that,

I think you'll.

You'll kind of understand that metaphor.

So,

you know, having a sedative herb when I'm inflamed like that, okay, it might take like

the worst of it down.

So I could actually sleep depending on how

strong the sedative was.

I can't really take sedatives now because of like co sleeping with my infant.

Like, I need to be able to wake up if he needs me.

But like, yeah, the kind of response to those things, especially when they become chronic,

isn't just like throwing sleep herbs at them.

Like, it is addressing the patterns of

inflammation.

And I guess, like, that's within reason, right?

Like, I know it sounds really awful, but like, if someone has a really like progressive,

like state of dis.

Ease, like for example,

really intense, like endometriosis, like, I'm not thinking right, herbalism is going to like

solve all their problems.

But herbalism can reduce levels of

inflammation.

So maybe there is the ability to move around

more or sleep better or be in like 20% less pain, which might enable someone to get,

you know, out of bed more and function more and feel a bit better, mental health wise.

Whereas I'm not saying like, okay, herbs can like heal all of these ******* chronic

illnesses and big disease states.

Do you know what I mean? Like, okay, I know other herbalists are maybe

a bit more heroic and confident, but I just mean, like,

even just reducing inflammation can have a big impact, especially as like a knock on to, to

sleep.

Okay, so, yeah, so like I've mentioned, like, inflammation isn't inherently bad.

Like, acute inflammation is very important and very protective.

And when we repress that, we do get into kind of problems.

You know, ultimately inflammation is like often a response to infection and helps with

that tissue repair.

Like, if you've ever seen herbs work their

magic with like wound care and stuff, like, it's ******* beautiful, you know, like seeing

that kind of inflammatory response and supporting that rather than trying to kind of

like suppress everything.

But when things become chronic,

it can just get a bit more complicated.

And I guess not everything has like a inflammatory driver.

I mean, I think a lot of things do, but like, many symptoms that might not be the kind of

like the immune system might not be the thing that is like really kicking that thing up a

notch.

Does that make sense? So,

yeah, like,

if someone says, like, I feel inflamed,

that might be very different and very like person specific.

Like, that might mean they're in lots of pain, that might mean they feel swelling, that might

mean actual local symptoms of kind of heat and redness or like markers that are high in terms

of chronic infection or.

Yeah, like skin inflammation, like bad psoriasis, things like this.

But yeah, like, inflammation can mean lots and lots of things.

And going into detail about it is like beyond the scope of this podcast, unfortunately.

But inflammation and the kind of activation of the immune system does have a strong

relationship with sleep in the body.

So sleep disruption, like I talk about, like,

sleep is always my number one priority for anyone.

And when we are chronically inflamed or in a lot of pain, that often has this knock on

effect onto our sleep, which therefore means we can't actually recover from our chronic

inflammation.

Does that make sense? Which is a.

So when I used to have cost chondritis, so chronic inflammation in the cartilage of my

rib cage was literally like getting stabbed in the ribs or beaten up or someone driving over

my rib cage.

Like, it was the most physical pain I've ever ******* experienced.

And the Nights were so hard because lying down on my ribs was like ******* torture.

So for me,

working with like herbs that helped with sleep but also reduced inflammation were really,

really important,

like herbs like chamomile and skullcap and stuff like this.

Because if I could get to sleep, my body had a shot at healing my rib cage.

And the things that actually helped to heal my rib cage were a **** ton of nervous system

support work, but also addressing things like food intolerances.

Like when I cut out yeast and gluten within literally six weeks, I felt like I had a new

body because those culprits were ******* inflaming me so much and constantly

reactivating my immune system and therefore affecting my sleep, blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah.

So it's like I took those triggers, triggers away,

lo and behold, less inflammation and I was able to sleep.

And obviously it's much easier if the cause of your inflammation is or not the cause, but a

contributor to your like inflammatory processes is a food.

Because I have quite a lot of like control over that, if that makes sense in terms of

what I can cut out and not cut out.

It is harder if it's something in your

environment, you know, like a pollutant, you know, like air pollution or something that

triggers your asthma.

Like, that's obviously a whole different ball game and is, yeah,

is difficult.

But when, yeah, like I said, just bringing it

back to the herbs, we need to be asking, like, why is someone waking up and what are the

potential contributors to that?

And how can we ideally be reducing levels of inflammation in whatever specific system that

person is experiencing it, or many systems so that we can get better sleep so that they can

reduce inflammation.

Does that make sense? It's a big ******* closed loop.

But you know, we might be thinking about pain support.

So that might look like, you know,

reducing these like inflammatory contributors, but also like pain relief.

Like I make a ******* banging musculoskeletal ointment rub thing with comfrey, St. John's

wort, arnica, wintergreen lavender essential oil, which obviously isn't safe for everyone,

but it's ******* wonderful in terms of like topical pain.

So applying that might enable someone to actually sleep.

You know, there were loads of herbs that can support with kind of pain in terms of like

their antispasmodic actions, like cramp bark, excuse me, or wild lettuce or oh God, my

brain.

Yeah, there's lots of different antispasmodics, but again,

that might then have this knock on effect on, you know, supporting someone to sleep and I

think pain is very interesting because pain is like the number one thing that people feel

gaslit about from doctors.

So they will go to a doctor and that doctor will be like very dismissive of their

experience.

I've been getting like ovarian pain like increasingly since I had my baby like two and

a half years ago.

So month by month it's getting a bit worse and

you know, I've been,

I should have started sooner but I've, you know, been taking a more kind of like herbal

mix at the moment and I went to the doctor finally about it and I'd been putting off

going to the doctor because I knew that it probably wouldn't be useful and lo and behold

it wasn't useful.

Like the guy mansplained me my menstrual cycle, explained that it was hormonal and that

ibuprofen will help and that eventually the pain will go away.

And I just for, oh thank God I've studied herbalism so that I can actually like support

myself on those like intense ovulation days.

And anyway, I'm going to get my coil out and stuff.

I just feel like, you know, I'm not having sex with anyone at the moment anyway, so may as

well take it out because it does cause like, like local inflammation because it's the

copper one.

So I'm hoping that helps.

But do they have the staff to do that?

Do they? So how long I'm going to wait, I don't know.

But anyway, what I'm saying is if you're a herbalist, supporting people one to one PA is

very ******* important in terms of listening to that, taking it seriously,

not just thinking like throwing cramp bark or something at someone is enough because we want

to be reducing those drivers of chronic inflammation.

Obviously pain relief ******* helps, don't minimise it.

But you know, we want to be getting to the root causes because that's what a lot of

doctors and stuff aren't doing.

And we want to be believing people and you know, like giving them supports what, you

know, in whatever way we can.

Whether that's like a topic topical thing or

yeah, anti inflammatory like support herbs or antispasmodic like pain relieving herbs.

Like, you know, they're all kind of important.

So the best thing for someone's sleep might be just to help them with their pain rather than

chucking sedative herbs at them.

Other kind of inflammatory causes of like insomnia can often just, you know, there's

often just this huge link to hormonal changes and you know, I'm nearly 39.

I think I'm heading in the perimortal, perimenopause direction.

Like, I'm almost sure of it.

My cycles are getting really, really short and

I am getting to that point now where when I'm premenstrual, I am just waking up more in the

night and maybe it's high cortisol, you know, from stress,

from being a single mom, blah, blah, blah, all the money stuff.

But like, it does feel like quite unusual for me and I do feel like it's this kind of

hormonal change.

And I do have clients who don't take herbs, particularly for sleep for most of their

cycles.

But in a particular phase they value them.

So the premenstrual time, they're like, I'm just struggling to sleep, so I just, you know,

give them some wild lettuce or something and then that is just knocking them out,

which again is like reducing inflammation in other ways and reducing pain because they've

had like, you know, high quality sleep.

So all sorts of hormonal stuff can contribute

to sleep challenges and insomnia, like, of, you know, all directions.

So again, if I'm supporting someone one to one, I am going to be thinking about are they

getting, are they experiencing insomnia,

like just that particular stages in their cycle and everyone is a little bit different.

You know, like someone might be very kind of like PMDD where like that progesterone switch

flips and then they just want to die, you know, and therefore we need different

strategies to,

to support someone who's experiencing that versus someone is being kept awake because

they've got a really, really heavy period and they're needing to go to the toilet like

several times a night.

So we can get support,

you know, with different kind of like menstruation, uterine herbs like yarrow or

raspberry leaf or you know, calendula, all the things.

Okay.

So yeah, I've talked about pain, I've talked

about menstruation.

Okay. And then digestion.

So yeah,

most people experiencing some sort of chronic inflammation, you can pretty much guarantee

that there is a connection to the digestive system because it just determines like so much

of our health.

So maybe someone is having this like inflammatory response to certain foods because

those foods are like triggering certain things in their immune system, like meaning they're

reacting to it like in a time in a kind of like allergicy way, as I've been saying.

So for example, if I had like, if I had ******* pumpkin, I would just be like coming

out in Mad R rashes and my face would be swelling, so I would need like antihistamines

asap.

But like I mentioned, if I have gluten, then I'm much more likely to just feel extremely

anxious, like feel really bloated and just not be able to sleep and have some sort of

abdominal pain.

Whereas, you know, maybe someone has dairy and then that causes loads of diarrhoea and

cramping and gas.

Or, you know, maybe someone's got dysbiosis in

terms of like an overgrowth of certain bacterial organisms in their gut.

So then when they have sugar, that triggers like a big kind of inflammat flare up of their

skin condition or headaches or whatever else is going on.

And then people can just have like other things going on in their GI tract.

Like maybe they're experiencing like reflux, which is horrendous if you've ever had it.

Or, you know, like abdominal pain in different places.

Like, bloating can really cause a lot of discomfort.

Obviously things like diarrhoea are like super uncomfortable and mean that you're bouncing up

and down to the toilet.

Likewise, like, constipation can also be like,

extremely painful.

So, yeah, like,

we want to also be looking at GI stuff.

Like, is that the thing that is waking them

up? And if it is, then how can we kind of support

with herbs that.

Yeah, can help kind of address that inflammatory problem in someone's guts.

And the magic of herbalism is it doesn't have to be one thing.

Right.

Like, we can work with herbs with all

different actions.

So that person might need like, nervous system

support and kind of soothing to sleep because of anxiety and stuff.

And they might need support with gas and bloating.

And lo and behold, they might also need support with period pain.

So a herb like chamomile, for example, will have all of these different functions, like

nervous system support, digestive support will be a good antispasmodic.

So it's like our kind of sleep materia medica can also support with inflammation.

Right.

And that's why I love herbalism, because it is

never simple.

And yeah, it's like there is this kind of

complex patterns.

Okay. So I'm just bouncing through the examples, but the next one is skin

inflammation.

So someone may be kept awake at night because of itching, and that might be without a

lesion, like without an obvious ratch or rash or something.

They might just be kind of itching systemically,

or they might be itching because they have, you know, some sort of like, inflammatory

thing going on, like psoriasis or eczema.

So, yeah, then, you know, we're gonna have to go down the whole, like, skin wormhole of, you

know, top support, internal support, digestive support.

Yeah. And again, bringing those things down might actually help someone to sleep, which

will then hopefully reduce that inflammation.

So, like I said, it's super, super connected.

Okay. Histamine.

I feel like the whole Internet is like,

obsessed with histamine.

And that's cool.

Like,

it hasn't had as much,

like, attention, but I think if someone has this kind of pattern of like, like allergic

symptoms, especially like nasally,

like,

they can.

That can really affect someone's sleep.

And I'm not talking about kind of like mast cell stuff, which is just super complicated to

go into this, but often if I've had something that I'm, like, slightly responsive to in

terms of my activated immune system, I will have, like,

specific nightmares, like dreams of being chased or under attack.

Because our immune system is like our kind of defence of our body.

Right.

So it kind of kicks into action and will be

kind of like, you know,

fighting the invaders or whatever, which is such a, like, colonial way of looking at the

body.

But whenever I support people that have chronic allergies, chronic hay fever,

you know, even like sleep apnea stuff, like, they nearly always have these kinds of

nightmares.

And I think it's really, really interesting.

So again, if we can kind of support that person's allergic responses, that's *******

fantastic.

You know, our kind of hay fevery herbs like nettle and chamomile and plantain.

I think if someone has a lot of histamine stuff, they can get quite dependent on anti

histamines for sleep and then they kind of get used as a kind of like, sleep crutch, if that

makes sense.

And I think,

yeah, I know it can be a real challenge with herbal stuff, but there are like, so many

other things that can kind of cause that response in the body, let alone things like

mould and, and air pollution and like.

Yeah, different kind of environmental stuff as well as, like, food allergies someone's like,

having in the daytime.

So I think those kind of, like,

environmental interventions are like, really, really important before we get, like, obsessed

with just taking these meds, which can be ******* a dangerous in terms of sedation, but

also, like, are, you know, having various effects on, like, the liver and the immune

system and stuff.

So we just need to be kind of cautious.

And again, like, I think the whole point of herbalism is to try address something

Holistically of what's going on.

But allergies are often like a major culprit

for like night wakings, for example.

Okay,

so just to summarise,

if you are supporting yourself or someone else, we are always asking what is actually

disrupting sleep? Is it pain, is it itching, is it reflux, is it

menstrual stuff, Is it nervous system?

Is it all the things at once we're going to be asking, like what is driving that kind of

presentation of like distress or disease in that body?

Like is it something we don't know that needs more investigation?

Is it an inflammatory condition that has been diagnosed?

Is it an autoimmune disease that's like been picked up or not been picked up?

Is it like a short term like injury?

Is there some sort of chronic infection going on?

Like what is the cause? Right.

Like what is driving as long, you know, we can't always find out or have certainty, but

we can kind of like do our due diligence to like investigate that stuff.

And then, you know, then we're looking at how do we work with herbs for that actual

presentation of what we're seeing.

So maybe that's pain relieving herbs, maybe

that's antispasmodic herbs.

Maybe that's doing all the digestive system support.

You know, the probiotics are command,

the probiotics, the carminatives, the antispasmodics, like all of the things.

And yeah, like getting very specific with our herbal medicine is what I'm talking about.

So, you know, maybe, I mean like turmeric gets like totally oversold in terms of

inflammation.

Inflammation.

But maybe if it is like pain in someone's joints and they are cold and damp feeling,

maybe turmeric could be super helpful for them or you know, could help with protein

metabolism, like all of these things that turmeric does.

Like, maybe that's a better intervention to support that some that person's body and

therefore their sleep.

Okay,

so yeah, I guess just covering my bases here, like, yeah, it is what worth getting things

checked out properly, especially pain.

Like pain is a clinical red flag.

Like in my frontline herbalism membership that I've been developing, I've got a whole module

about clinical red flags for herbalists.

And pain is something we nearly always need to refer on to doctors to just get screened of

like what is causing this pain, especially pain in the night, or like bone pain, things

like this.

So like there's all sorts of red flags which I'm to going, not gonna go through in detail.

But things like,

yeah,

fever can be a red flag.

Like night sweats,

weight loss, you know, any blood, like neurological symptoms, like yeah, kind of like

things that are becoming like very persistent and chronic and are kind of things that should

be short term presentations in the body but that have become chronic.

I would always want to be finding out what the ****'* going on and ideally working with

doctors to do that.

I really understand people's trauma around

like the medical system and the medical industrial complex and all of this stuff and

access to healthcare issues.

But like,

you know, there are very kind of serious diseases and drivers of inflammation that

really, really, really do need to get like identified.

So yeah, kind of working within your scope of practice and if someone knows what's going on

for them and you can work together to kind of address things holistically.

Looking at their digestion, looking at their chronic pain, supporting their nerv through it

all, then that's like, you know, game changing.

Okay, I think that's all I'm going to talk about today as I have a call shortly.

But I just wanted to, yeah, basically say that there are 101 things that can prevent someone

sleeping well.

And to be effective herbalists, we need to kind of identify what they are.

And we've got an amazing array of herbs that have affinities for different like body

systems, whether that's joint pain, whether that's digestive distress, whether that's

uterine pain.

Like we have so many amazing plant medicines that we can work with to address some of these

kind of underlying drivers of chronic inflammation and that will hopefully have more

of a kind of strategic impact on someone's sleep which will therefore reduce the

inflammation because they are sleeping better.

So win, win.

Anyway,

again, Shameless Plug Herbalism, PTSD and traumatic stress course is still open for

enrolment.

It closes next Sunday.

So please, please, please join it if you're interested because it won't be available again

until next year at the.

I'm going to be back soon talking about sedative herbs and kind of like herbal safety

around sleep and insomnia.

And then I've got an episode about nightmares as well.

And I'm proud of my little voice that's kept out.

But it's got a bit now, so I'm going to stop talking.

But yeah, thank you so much for listening.

Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline

Herbalism podcast.

You can find the transcript, the links, all

the resources from the show at Solidarity apothecary.

Org Podcast.