Insomnia and Sleeplessness After Trauma & Stress

Natural Sleep Remedies and Tips For Better Sleep

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

How Stress and Trauma Affect Sleep and the Nervous System

Whether it’s surviving the loss of a job, a relationship breakup, the aftermath of a car crash, or a violent experience, most people struggle to sleep when their nervous system has been overwhelmed in some way. Insomnia and sleeplessness are the body’s way of telling us that it’s struggling to process the past.

To put it simply, the nervous system has been imprinted with either one big shocking jolt or a series of smaller jolts over time that leave our body stuck in survival mode, in either the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response.

During this period of shock, because these events changed the way we see and exist in the world, our body is trying to update how it processes the world anew.

It can take weeks, even years, for our body to re-learn safety and rest again, in a world that it must re-enter and understand differently through the updated narrative of the new experience that our body is still trying to contend with.

I experienced firsthand the exhausting struggle of trying to fall asleep, stay asleep, and cope with nightmares after surviving a sexual assault and going through the day-to-day draining conflict of an extremely difficult divorce.

How REM Sleep Heals Traumatic Memory

Similarly, my friend Joey recently confided in me with a similar story—specifically, being held up at gunpoint as his car was being stolen.

Not surprisingly, he complained of insomnia and sleeplessness, being unable to stay asleep as he’d wake up with a terrifying jolt. Even when he slept, his body could not relax enough to enter the most important, healing, and reparative phase of sleep called the ‘Rapid Eye Movement’.

During the REM sleep phase, the brain actually diffuses trauma memory, making our emotionally charged memories feel less scary, less intense, and a bit more distanced from our lives, according to sleep researcher Matthew Walker.

It’s as if our bodies revisit these traumatic or stressful events while we are less conscious as a way to protect our psyche while it explores how we’d like to relive or rewrite the narrative.

While unconscious, our brain can explore what we would have liked to do differently or how we see and process the event differently when we have our unconscious creative imaginations running completely wild with no rules of gravity, time or space to take into consideration.

Tips For Better Sleep After Trauma And Stress

To improve insomnia and sleeplessness at night, we first need to help the body relearn how to slowly turn off the survival response throughout the day and reorient the nervous system to what safety feels like in this new ‘post-traumatic stress’ world.

This is best learned, not through talk therapy, but through body-based movement therapies that bring the nervous system back into the present moment.

The good news is that these body-based movement therapies also help the body stop living with other PTSD-related symptoms. These other related symptoms often include flashbacks, triggers, exaggerated startle response, difficulty focusing, mood changes, and anxiety, in addition to the already present insomnia, sleeplessness, and nightmares

Tips For Better Sleep Include:

Body-Based Therapies and Movement

• Rewire Trauma Therapy offers self-paced follow-along, 10-minute therapies online of Trauma-Informed Yoga, Karate and Martial Arts, Qigong, Tai Chi, Somatic Therapy, Vagal Toning, Art Therapy, and Dance Therapy. These are carefully designed by trauma therapists to train the body and nervous system to reorient out of the past and into the present moment.
• Anxiety or depression can creep up on us if we’re suffering from insomnia, sleeplessness, and nightmares, so make sure to keep the body moving out of these heavy, slow, and frozen states by moving in whichever way feels right for you including walking, swimming, or dancing.

Nutrition

• It’s important to drink 6–8 cups of water per day because this dilutes the high cortisol levels which is the body’s stress hormone.
• Eat a low sugar, but high protein and high-fiber diet to avoid blood sugar crashes which can trigger the nervous system to go right back into its stressful survival response again.
•  TraumaSoothe is a herbal supplement specially designed to help those suffering from insomnia, sleeplessness, and nightmares, by soothing the nervous system after trauma to support deeper, reparative REM sleep. TraumaSoothe supplement includes the following herbal remedies to improve sleep: Hops, Melatonin, B6, California poppy, Valerian Extract, GABA, Magnesium, 5 HTP, L- Theanine, and Ashwagandha.

Courtesy of Traumasoothe.org

Navigating insomnia and sleeplessness after enduring stress or trauma is often an arduous journey for both the body and mind.

The impact of these traumatic experiences often leaves us struggling to find rest and solace as our nervous system grapples with an overwhelming survival response. Through personal experiences and shared stories, we’ve highlighted how trauma affects our ability to achieve restorative REM sleep — a vital phase for diffusing traumatic memory and rewriting emotional narratives.

The path to better sleep involves relearning safety and guiding the nervous system out of survival mode. Body-based movement therapies, such as those provided by Rewire Trauma Therapy’s online therapy programs and TraumaSoothe’s herbal supplement aid in this reorientation, offering a way back to the present moment.

Moreover, maintaining physical activity and a balanced diet play pivotal roles in managing stress hormones and preventing recurring survival responses.

Remember, the path to better sleep after trauma is multifaceted, requiring patience, self-care, and holistic approaches to help the body and mind find comfort and healing. Trust in your body’s healing journey and follow the solutions that make your nervous system feel the most supported.

Most importantly, remember to be patient and kind to yourself.