Nicole:
Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast with your host, Nicole Rose from the
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Solidarity Apothecary.
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This is your place for all things plants and
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liberation.
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Let’s get started.
Nicole:
Hello. Welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.
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How are you doing? I’m doing good.
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Not gonna lie a little bit premenstrual today, but that’s okay.
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Yeah, I’m on the last few days now of the herbalism PTSD and traumatic stress cause
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promotion.
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Oh my God. If you want to join it,
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join it.
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Please don’t leave it to the last minute.
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It just is such a like anxiety roller coaster financially.
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But then people join on the last day and I’m like, phew.
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But this literally happens like every time.
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But yeah, like I’ve talked about it plenty.
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It’s a banging eight module course all about
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trauma, nervous system physiology, different nervous system states, the politics of trauma,
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and then just like all the dreamy herbal content, how to make medicine, how to harvest
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sustainably,
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how to sort of design your own like learning pathway as a herbalist and get involved in
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different projects and stuff.
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And then there’s 32 in depth plant profiles of
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herbs with an affinity for the nervous system.
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With all my nuance and rants that you’ve heard on this podcast, but in a much more
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structured, pretty format with my beautiful slides.
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But yeah, I do think the course is really life changing.
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I was putting together a testimonial post a couple of days ago and like had to reread a
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bunch of testimonials which I still haven’t put on the website.
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And I just, I felt really emotional of like,
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you know, in the digital world you don’t always have that like face to face interaction
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with people to kind of gauge the impact of what you’re doing.
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Like for me, I just feel like I’m just dropping my child off and then like running
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around like a headless chicken, like getting stuff done.
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And then you just reread these testimonials of people that are like,
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you know, I keep returning to these resources or this is like one of the best herbalism
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courses I’ve done.
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Or you know, the resources are like super
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organised or, or I’ve learned so much or now I’ve got a relationship with Rosemary or do
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you know what I mean?
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Like, it just,
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it really ******* means a lot to me basically like what people have said about the course.
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And yeah, like I’m just, I need to like remember the impact of it.
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Does that make sense? Because I think I just get like lost in this,
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like Promotion.
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******* weird digital marketing land.
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And it’s like,
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no, like, I literally ******* created it because I spent a long time dancing around a
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million different resources and strategies of how the **** do I feel better with this pmt
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that is like, pmt,
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pmt. I. Like I said I’m feeling premature today, but this ptsd, which is just, like,
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permeating every cell in my body,
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like, how do I ******* escape from this cage of distress?
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And the.
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Obviously, like, not everyone that goes
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through the course will, like, have that resolution.
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But I just mean in this sense of, like,
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having this information organised and having this insight and understanding of, like,
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okay, I’m in fight or flight right now.
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Like, I need to do this, this and this to help
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to help me shift this state, or this is the herb I draw on, or I’m ******* run down and
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depleted.
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Which herbs can I make a tonic with to support myself?
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Do you know what I mean? Like, all of these things that took me so long
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to piece together because I couldn’t find it in a clear resource.
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Like, it’s just there now.
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And the fact that it’s no one turned away for,
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like, funds just means everything to me.
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Like, I haven’t had to lose my political
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integrity by creating an offering that, like,
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serves people.
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So, like, please use the solidarity code.
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If, like, finances are a barrier, like, that is what it’s for.
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And, you know, like, I get like a buzz every time someone joins.
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You know, if they pay for work or start a payment plan, I get excited because I’m like,
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amazing.
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You know, that money can help with all the things, the packages, like reopening the Black
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Flag Clinic, like, all of this stuff.
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And then if people don’t pay, I think, great,
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like, I’ve just supported another working class person to, like, access this knowledge,
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you know?
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So,
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anyway, yeah, last few days now, final push.
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And then I can finally give all the other
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things a bit of headspace.
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I’m really doing a lot of thinking behind the scenes about the free clinic model.
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And is it better to do it once a month rather than once a week?
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Like, how can sort of students get more from it?
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How can I have a more, like, structured relationship to it?
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So it’s not quite having the same impact on my livelihood and stuff.
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I don’t know, I’m just like, in a reflective mood at the moment.
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So, yeah, watch this space.
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And also,
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once this course promotions out the way, I’m gonna be promoting all the other things,
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aren’t I? It’s gonna be a merchandise extravaganza.
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I’m determined to raise those money for the Mobile Herbal Clinic Calais,
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and also for Black Flag.
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We can have a beaut herbal bandana coming your
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way soon,
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actually.
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Shout out if you’re an illustrator and you’d
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be up for sharing a design you’ve done or doing something bespoke for one of these
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herbal projects.
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Like, I would love you forever.
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So,
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yeah, please get in touch if that’s something that resonates.
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All right, I’m gonna stop talking now and.
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Well, I’m not going to stop talking because
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I’m about to record a longer podcast episode, but I’m going to be talking about nightmares.
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Fun topic,
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but, yeah, I’ll pause here and then, yeah, let’s get stuck into the show.
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Okay,
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so nightmares.
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So I’ve actually already got a podcast episode about herbal support for Nightmares, where I
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do go into some of this stuff.
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So there’s a little bit of repetition.
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But that episode, like, specifically focused more on plants.
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I’m going to obviously be talking about plant medicines today, but a bit like the rest of
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the episodes around Insomnia and also the series before about, like, depletion is like,
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I’m going to be looking at things, like, a bit more,
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like, holistically in this, like,
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bigger framework of, like, what are the kind of other factors that can be contributing to
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nightmares? Because, again, it’s not just a case of, like,
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throw a herb at someone.
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Like, it’s much more complex.
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So, yeah, the reason I’m really passionate about nightmares is, like, I struggled with
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them a lot.
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Like, after I got out of prison for what
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honestly felt like years, I’d have the same recurring nightmare of being in a prison cell
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and the walls just closing in on me and they would never,
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like, completely crush me, but there was always this feeling of, like, I’m gonna
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******* die in here.
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And, like,
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I cannot tell you how much of effect that had on my life.
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Like, I would wake up in the mornings,
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like, especially if I’d woken up from that nightmare, just feeling just so horrendous and
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full of, like, panic and, you know, you have a kind of hangover that follows you through the
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day.
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Right. I mean, I was already, like, quite kind of in fight or flight a lot with, you know,
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especially all the prisoner support work I was doing at the time.
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But, like,
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yeah, I think they made me kind of, like, fear going to sleep, but I would always kind of
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pass out from just pure exhaustion from workaholism.
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But, like,
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yeah, they just made,
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like, sleeping not be this, like, nourishing life giving thing that it should be and just
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made them the nights feel kind of full of terror, if I’m honest.
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And you know, I’d have all sorts of other nightmares of like I want to go into the
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horrors but different things.
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But it was, yeah, it was quite like the recurringness of it also felt like a bit of a
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challenge, if that makes sense.
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So yeah, I think nightmares, yeah, they’re,
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they’re communicating something to us that there’s like distress in the body and there
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can be many different reasons and I’m going to talk about those in a second.
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But I just want to kind of emphasise that like it is possible to shift them and it is
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possible to get like good quality nourishing sleep that doesn’t feel threatening, that is
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resourcing and regenerative and like.
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Yeah, like I have worked with a lot of like former prisoners and like other people who’ve
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gone through trauma stuff that nightmares is like a big factor of why they’ve reached out
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to me.
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And like it is, yeah, it’s basically just completely possible to shift them.
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And I know people think that like their trauma is insurmountable and I totally understand
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that and it can definitely feel like that when you’re in the middle of it.
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But I just want to reassure you that I do think it is possible to kind of work through
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that kind of trauma and you know, sleep well.
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And also not everyone has gone through gnarly
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trauma to generate having nightmares.
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And I’m going to talk about that now of like the different sort of drivers of, of
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nightmares because they are kind of important.
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Okay, so what are the different drivers? So okay, I’ve just mentioned trauma.
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I’ll just talk about that briefly.
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But I think in my Herbalism Mistake Violence
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book I’ve got a article in there about Hubble’s support for nightmares.
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And I do quote some research around actually.
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I’ll just pull it up.
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Medicine.
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They found that 80% of people experiencing
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PTSD have frequent nightmares.
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So you know, like they are a significant thing that correlate with trauma and traumatic
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stress.
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And there’s lots of reasons for that.
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Like for example, maybe you’ve heard of like REM sleep, like rapid eye movement sleep.
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So this is the kind of like stage of sleep where we are consolidating memories and we are
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emotionally processing and you know, it’s also where our sort of like brain is developing and
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everything else.
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Like I just look at my beautiful son when he falls asleep.
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And I just think of all those new vehicles, you know, he’s his obsessed with tractors and
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stuff like vehicle words in his brain and just how he’s sucking everything up like a sponge
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and just learning and learning and learning.
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And you know, I think we should be learning all the time.
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Not just as a toddler, but I just mean like sleep is so vital to this kind of integration
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and processing.
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And I think that’s potentially why nightmares become so chronic is like they are preventing
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us from processing that traumatic memory because we’re unable to get into like deep
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enough stages of sleep where we’re like, our brain is actually really able to reorganise
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our memories.
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Which is why I think it’s like ******* valuable to do things like brain spotting or
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edmr.
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I talk about those in the herbalism PTSD
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Traumatic stress stress course because I talk about how plant medicines are like one tool in
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the toolbox.
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And I kind of have a lesson where I like run through a whole variety of kind of like
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modalities and approaches that have been,
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you know, well used, well researched.
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I talk about some of their like political like
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nuances and you know, like a lot of this stuff’s being used with like people in the
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army so that they can like continue to like be violent.
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You know, I mean like it’s really up.
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But there are lots of tools in the toolbox and
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I think that kind of daytime traumatic memory processing is really, really, really
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important.
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Especially if we’re not getting like quality sleep to do that.
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So I had like several months of brain spotting with lots of intrusive thoughts I was having
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from prison.
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And this was like years after prison but
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because I was like so heavily engaged in like anti prison expansion work, prisoner support
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work, I was just like ******* triggered like non stop like constant memories and like
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remembering of the violence and like.
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Yeah, it just.
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So anyway, but having this brain spotting, I did really feel like it kind of helped me
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actually finally integrate those memories.
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Like I literally don’t understand how it works
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but it is life changing and I’ve heard that from so many people.
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So yeah, if you are struggling with like intrusive thoughts and nightmares, like I
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think that kind of daytime strategies of those tools with a good practitioner it’s like
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really, really like powerful.
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And yeah, I can recommend a woman who’s in Glasgow, she used to live down near me but she
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moved back to Scotland and like she was just like fantastic.
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Okay. So yeah,
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so yeah, we need to be kind of like processing that trauma as much as we can in the kind of
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daytime and you know, like, this is where things like counselling and stuff are really
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difficult for people that have experienced a lot of trauma because it can just often re
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trigger you.
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But I think a good sort of therapist or counsellor will hopefully shift you to do that
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work in that session so that you’re in a bit more of a kind of like resource state at the
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end.
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But I am very aware that like any kind of trauma healing stuff takes a lot of energy.
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Okay, so yeah, I’m going to talk about,
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yeah,
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the kind of other trauma stuff, but I just, yeah, I want to name that.
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It is like a big,
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yeah, a big driver of nightmares because the body is, is, you know, needing to kind of just
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organise the world of like, are you safe? Are you not safe?
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Like what has happened?
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Like,
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does that need some sort of like healing or completion or understanding or integration?
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Do you know what I mean?
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Okay, so yeah, so there’s that kind of like historical trauma and I recognise in the PTSD
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course that like,
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it’s a privilege.
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It’s not privileged, but it is a different
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position when trauma is historical versus like something that’s ******* ongoing.
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Do you know what I mean? Like for people living like in ******* Gaza or
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something, that trauma is like endlessly ongoing.
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It’s not a historical thing that they can now start processing.
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Right.
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But yeah, for many people it will be something that has happened that you now need to kind of
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heal and recover from, even if you’re living in conditions where, you know, you don’t have
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like safety emotionally or physically,
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etc.
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But yeah, so there’s this kind of like historical.
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Sorry, it’s not just historical.
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Anyway, I don’t want to say the same point
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again, but there is also like acute stress.
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So when I’ve had like a very high stress day,
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you know, where it doesn’t happen very often now, thank God.
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But like the other day I was in like such a mad rush trying to get loads of stuff done and
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my mum, bless her, like popped into my herb share to say something and I was just caught
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off guard and I spill all this oat seed glycerite which I just spent like three days
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making in the slow cookers.
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I just spilled like probably a litre on the floor and I just, just screamed and I, you
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know, I was angry that I’d spilled this medicine but like the scream was a release of
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like built up pressure of like the course launch and the, you know, the solo parenting
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and like all of this like Economic stuff and you know,
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just this time pressure in the mornings.
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But like that acute spike in adrenaline.
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Like that night I did have a nightmare and that the nightmare wasn’t like triggered by
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historical stress.
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I mean, maybe like some childhood poverty was coming up.
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But like, actually I just had a spike in that kind of in those stress hormones.
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And yeah, there is like that connection between stress hormones and nightmares.
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So it’s like.
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Yeah, it was kind of a big trigger.
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Okay.
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So, yeah, so there’s that kind of like peak
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acute stress, like adrenaline surgery stuff.
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And then there is just kind of like baseline
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anxiety, I would say, of like if there’s something that you are feeling like
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particularly sort of threatened by.
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I feel like that’s something that often causes nightmares.
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Like,
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like when my ex was kind of had relapsed and was in like full on active addiction again.
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I mean, thank God he’s like, safer now.
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But like, I would have like frequent dreams of
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him.
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Yeah. Getting stabbed or being at his funeral and explaining to my son what had happened.
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And like, do you know what I mean? And I think like,
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those nightmares are probably quite necessary of like,
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protecting me and keeping me safe of like just processing fear.
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Does that make sense? So. And you know, maybe I would sort of say
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they’re like there’s a spectrum, right, of like distressing dreams versus, like nightmare
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horror where you wake up in panic.
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Do you know what I mean? Like, I think there’s kind of a spectrum and I
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think when you have like very real life challenges going on, like, that will obviously
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be processed in the night because that’s when we process our fear and our anxiety and
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everything else.
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So. Yeah, there’s often like this structural stuff that’s influencing our sleep.
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Right.
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Like, it would be kind of evolutionary crazy
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if like you had some really hardcore thing going on and then you just like slept like a
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baby.
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I hate it when people say sleep like a baby because babies don’t always sleep very long.
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Like they ******* wake up for booby.
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So anyway,
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okay.
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Other things that can worsen nightmares or like be drivers of them.
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It sounds ironic, but actually like sleep deprivation, like when sleep is like heavily
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disrupted and those kind of patterns of like, which stage of the sleep you’re able to
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access,
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like, that will go like, really wonky.
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Like, I find some people actually have almost
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like nightmares in like daytime naps and stuff because it’s like their body has just like
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kind of gone too fast into certain stages of sleep or more like come out of them too
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quickly.
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So. Yeah. So kind of.
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Yeah, Any sort of sleep deprivation can be a
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factor.
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And I think our cultures are like very
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normalised to people not getting enough sleep.
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And people will be like, I’m getting five
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hours, like, I’m fine and I’m just like,
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me, it’s not enough.
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Like, we need you on eight or nine.
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Like.
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So, yeah, I think people don’t realise like quite what an extreme sleep deficit they’re
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in.
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And that can be a big factor of kind of,
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yeah,
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sleep disturbances, what quality of their sleep cycle is going on, you know, and
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obviously it’s like vicious cycle, right? Like when you start having nightmares, you
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don’t want to go to sleep.
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So then, you know, you get into this kind of pattern of avoiding sleep and stuff.
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Okay, so medications,
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so certain medications can cause nightmares.
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Like,
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I find more the sort of like antidepressant types aren’t too bad when people are going on
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them, but I find when they’re withdrawing from them, they’ll start getting bad nightmares.
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But yeah, there’s like a million and one other meds that can influence sleep, obviously,
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especially if they’re things you take in the nighttime or like even like strong
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antihistamines can really give people different nightmares.
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So. So yeah, I think if, like night, if you haven’t gone anything, gone through anything
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like recently quite traumatic or where you’ve got a lot of intense anxiety and sort of daily
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threats, like if you start on a new med and you start experiencing nightmares, like I
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would double check,
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do you know what I mean? Like, look on the BNF website or your, the
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leaflet that comes with medication and, or, you know, speak to a doctor or whatever.
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But just have a little check and see if other people have experienced that.
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You know, ask on.
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I love Reddit, you know, I mean, I’ve never actually written anything on there, but like
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the amount of times since I’ve had a child where I’m like some other poor parent from
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Indiana or something is like, yeah, my child has a fever when he’s teething, but the
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doctors say you can’t have it anyway.
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But yeah, so basically just, just, yeah, just double check your meds and if you are
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withdrawing from medication, then that can obviously be a big sort of factor.
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Okay, so like different substances and alcohol especially can also trigger nightmares.
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Like for some people,
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like they just can’t like smoke weed or something, for example, because it triggers
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like bad dreams for them.
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And like, I think this is a kind of like
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chicken and egg thing of like, is it the substance or is it that certain pathways in
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your brain are unlocked,
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like to process trauma.
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And you know, the alcohol or the drugs have
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unlocked those pathways.
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Do you know what I mean?
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But like, alcohol does obviously affect the liver and when we have liver things going on,
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that can often like wake us up in the middle of the night or like change our cortisol
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levels and stuff like that.
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So I think that is like a factor.
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So if you’re having kind of like intermittent
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nightmares, like maybe it is worth checking, like,
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did you have them on the odd night where you had even just like a glass of wine?
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You know, that could be enough to trigger nightmares in someone.
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Fever or illness.
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So who hasn’t had a crazy dream when they’ve got a fever?
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Like, it’s just a standard part of an activated immune system, I think.
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And this is where allergies come in, right? Like, I think I’ve mentioned this before, but
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like people that have got chronic allergies especially, I find where there’s like sinus
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activation, kind of like sinusitis type stuff like, like they will often have bad
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nightmares, especially if there’s like a sort of environmental allergen that’s like peaked,
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if you know what I mean.
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Like a certain time of year or like they like
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stay in a hotel or something and they’re like reacting to the bed linen and sheets and stuff
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like this.
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But like, yeah, kind of like, kind of like when you have a fever, your immune system is
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like highly activated in the body and that can trigger nightmares.
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It’s.
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I think it’s just basically very similar with
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allergies of your immune system is activated, therefore you feel under threat.
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Like when I have gluten, for example, like I’ve mentioned, I will have like pure
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nightmares sometimes about like being attacked or it will be like proper survival dreams,
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like kind of zombie apocalypse type stuff.
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I mean, I’ve never actually had a dream about zombies.
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Like, I actually think that would be really fun.
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But maybe it’s not.
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Not that like running for your life thing, but
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just anyway.
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But yeah, but it’s kind of.
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Yeah, there are like lots of environmental
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factors basically that could be influencing things.
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Oh God, don’t get me started on like actual sleep disorders, like sleep apnea,
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for example.
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Like,
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yeah, if you are like persistently waking up in the night and people around you have been
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telling you that you’ve been snoring for years.
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Please get investigated for sleep apnea because when you have the right like breathing
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support in the night, you will feel like a different human, you know, Especially if
Nicole:
you’ve been getting nightmares from this Kind of completely ****** up sleep cycle because
Nicole:
you literally are waking yourself up because you can’t breathe.
Nicole:
So, yeah, let’s screen out all the basic stuff.
Nicole:
Hormonal changes.
Nicole:
So,
Nicole:
yeah, maybe you notice more nightmares when you’re like premenstrual, for example, or
Nicole:
ovulating.
Nicole:
You know, like having a dream about falling in
Nicole:
love with a man again, like, that’s quite frightening, isn’t it?
Nicole:
No, I’m just joking.
Nicole:
But yeah, but there might be like hormonal
Nicole:
changes, like perimenopause.
Nicole:
Like all of these different factors can, can
Nicole:
obviously contribute to changes in sleep and therefore risks of nightmares.
Nicole:
So, yeah, if you are experiencing chronic nightmares, basically just kind of like, like
Nicole:
start a bit of like tracking and detective work of, you know, was it after a certain food
Nicole:
or did you drink that night or had you had a disrupted sleep pattern previously or, you
Nicole:
know, had you seen something particularly triggering on the tv?
Nicole:
I think,
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yeah, I think like on a kind of trauma level in terms of actual support,
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I like,
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like, I totally understand that people that have been through traumatic stuff want to
Nicole:
change those conditions, right.
Nicole:
And I totally understand why we need to be
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engaging with real life and death stuff, because that is reality.
Nicole:
You know, people need to be organising against genocide, people need to be liberating animals
Nicole:
that are getting abused in labs.
Nicole:
Like all of these things need to happen.
Nicole:
But it’s like, oh, can we try and do them in the daytime?
Nicole:
No, I’m just joking.
Nicole:
But I’m.
Nicole:
I. I mean, like, for example, for me,
Nicole:
with my prison related ptsd,
Nicole:
I can take all the herbs I want, but if I’m having a meeting just before I go to sleep,
Nicole:
where we’re talking about prisoners we’re supporting and who attempted suicide and this
Nicole:
person got,
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you know, felt up by this prison officer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like, that is
Nicole:
gonna go in my sleep.
Nicole:
So, like, the best thing I ever did for
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preventing nightmares for myself was just saying no to like prison meetings of like,
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I can’t ******* do this in the evening anymore, you know, and then trying to have
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them, like I have the headspace to talk about the horrors of state violence, right?
Nicole:
Like my whole ******* life’s designed around that.
Nicole:
But, like,
Nicole:
there is a difference for me about doing that.
Nicole:
Having my client calls, like in the morning or
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in the afternoon where I can hear that stuff, I can process it, and then,
Nicole:
you know, in the evening get a bit of respite for the nervous system.
Nicole:
So that stuff’s not just right there before you drop into sleep.
Nicole:
So,
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you know, I think people like I mean I find people that have been through a lot of trauma
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stuff like actually just can’t do like horror films and stuff.
Nicole:
Like my ex was saying, like how many rom coms he’s watched in rehab.
Nicole:
Like, I mean he’s a Pisces, he loves all that.
Nicole:
But like,
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yeah, like we just have to be really aware in our digital world what consuming just before
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bed, like what we’re thinking about, like is it going to be triggering something that is
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like a ******* core part of us that has been threatened of danger, do you know what I mean?
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And just,
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it sounds crazy but like it is going to be more effective than any herb to just kind of
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try and give your body some time before bed where you can have that parasympathetic like
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rest and digest stuff going on.
Nicole:
Okay, so what other things can you do? So like I said,
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you know, trying to reduce those triggers before bed,
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addressing any sort of drivers where possible.
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So you know, like doing that kind of like
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trauma, trauma work in the daytime, the brain spotting the edmr, like if you can access
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funding for that or whatever, that’s like amazing.
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And it, this does come back and link into this like daytime nervous system support.
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Like if I’m so overwhelmed in a day that I’ve got to the level where I’m like screaming in
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my herb shed because, because I’ve spilled something,
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I know I haven’t been like tending to my nervous system enough.
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Do you know what I mean? Like as in haven’t been taking my relaxant
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nerve irons.
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I haven’t given myself like 10 minutes to just
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drink a cup of tea and have a cheeky snack.
Nicole:
Like so it’s like,
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yeah, how can you be preventing yourself from getting to 100, do you know what I mean?
Nicole:
And taking that really seriously.
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And I think when you struggle with anxiety,
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like, like being observant and sort of soothing yourself so you don’t get there is
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really important because having days with like really extreme levels of stress hormones and
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panic attacks and all the other horrors of ptsd,
Nicole:
like that’s just,
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yeah, it’s just like harm in your body.
Nicole:
Right?
Nicole:
Like so, yeah, like doing whatever you can to support yourself through the daytime to yeah,
Nicole:
kind of reduce the activation will definitely have a knock on effect on the kind of
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frequency of nightmares in my experience.
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Okay. My other thought was like sleep consistency.
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So like I know there’s like a real luxury to this and I know loads of people do evening
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shifts and night shifts and like all the things but like if it is possible for you to
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kind of try and anchor like a steady routine as possible.
Nicole:
Like, I think that is really, really important.
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Like, I,
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I realised like when I kind of went on a bit of a sleep mission years ago of kind of like
Nicole:
improving my sleep,
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for me, it wasn’t getting to sleep wasn’t the problem.
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The problem was I was like bouncing out of bed so early and I realise now that was like a big
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cortisol thing.
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But I would be like booking trains to go to the other side of the country.
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So I’d have to get up at like 4 and then get to the train station.
Nicole:
And then I just realised, like, if I travelled in the daytime to the prison, as in, you know,
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like to the area,
Nicole:
I mean I, I am grateful to the pandemic for this because obviously, I mean, they stopped a
Nicole:
lot prison visits, but like we started leveraging like a little bit of group money of
Nicole:
one of the collectives I’m in to like pay for hotels because I couldn’t like risk staying on
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like random people’s sofas and stuff like this because my stepdad was shielding.
Nicole:
I obviously also didn’t want to get covered because who wants to get covered?
Nicole:
But also, you know, I was going back and forth to France,
Nicole:
so me getting sick would have had like big repercussions and things.
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So I would go to an area and, you know, drive there if I was too nervy of the train and I
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would stay in a cheap hotel, cheap Airbnb or whatever.
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And like,
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lo and behold, my sleep’s so much better because I can just sleep in like a few hours
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later.
Nicole:
And so, yeah, like I. In the herbalism, PTSD
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and traumatic stress course, I’ve got a whole lesson on sleep where I sort of share these,
Nicole:
like, tracking things you can track.
Nicole:
So tracking like what time, roughly, if you can, what time you fall asleep, but also what
Nicole:
time you wake up and sometimes the shifts the next day, if that makes sense.
Nicole:
But sleep consistency will really help because when we get into these patterns of like not
Nicole:
enough sleep,
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it starts to affect the quality of sleep.
Nicole:
Okay, so like, I’ve mentioned checking your medications.
Nicole:
Like you can kind of Google that stuff pretty easily.
Nicole:
But if you’re concerned, like, obviously talking to your doctor about that, if you want
Nicole:
to titrate something or experiment with a different med, like all of that stuff,
Nicole:
Stuff’s, you know, their kind of arena.
Nicole:
But yeah, that might be like a sneaky factor.
Nicole:
Likewise, you know, reducing substances or,
Nicole:
you know, it might be that just food intolerance is the thing.
Nicole:
Right? So it might be like experiment with cutting
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out gluten or nightshade family or dairy, you know, like our dairy is a really big one for
Nicole:
people.
Nicole:
So yeah, like,
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you know, it’s not just, oh, I’ve been through this trauma and it’s causing this thing.
Nicole:
Like there’s all these other physiological drivers, right.
Nicole:
That we can kind of holistically look at.
Nicole:
Okay. Like I mentioned the edmr, stuff like that.
Nicole:
Yeah.
Nicole:
And I think planning in advance for like if you wake up from a nightmare,
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what’s your kind of go to, do you know what I mean?
Nicole:
Like, what’s your process? Like, this person K, who I used to have the
Nicole:
EDMR with,
Nicole:
she also taught me these like trauma releasing exercises.
Nicole:
And when I would have nightmares years, I mean, I didn’t have a baby at this point, so I
Nicole:
was on my own in bed.
Nicole:
But like I could trigger that shaking in my body.
Nicole:
I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.
Nicole:
You kind of like hold your legs in certain
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positions and to kind of tie them out and it just like triggers shaking.
Nicole:
It’s amazing.
Nicole:
But like I could do that after I had a
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nightmare.
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Do you know what I mean?
Nicole:
Or I could like get up or like sometimes I would just need something soothing and I would
Nicole:
just get up and watch like videos of like puppies.
Nicole:
Like, no,
Nicole:
like whatever thing is soothing to you.
Nicole:
Get that in place if you’re experiencing chronic nightmares.
Nicole:
And obviously for me it was all about like the herbs, right?
Nicole:
So like I said, like there is this whole other episode where I talk about herbal support for
Nicole:
nightmares.
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And a lot of the herbs that I worked with then I just can’t take now because they’re a bit
Nicole:
too sedating.
Nicole:
But one of my absolute favourites is like
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passion flower.
Nicole:
Like, oh, I make such a nice passion flower glycerite.
Nicole:
But like that herb to me was like,
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it just,
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yeah, it just made me feel safe like as soon as I took it, like, because, you know, there
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is this element of like fright of being frightened of going back to sleep.
Nicole:
Like, chamomile is another one.
Nicole:
Absolutely beautiful for nightmares.
Nicole:
I found skull cap a little bit too sedating for me.
Nicole:
So like, if I woke up at like 3, 4, you know, the classic cortisol time with a nightmare, I
Nicole:
might not want to then have like a strong sedative because I would often be getting up
Nicole:
at like 6,
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6, like that’s just like my normal body clock.
Nicole:
I go to bed really early.
Nicole:
So if you’re like shot by that, it’s like it’s
Nicole:
not a big deal because I go to bed at like 9 so I get loads of sleep.
Nicole:
Well, less so now I have an infant.
Nicole:
But yeah, like I,
Nicole:
back then I wouldn’t want to take something like skull cap in the middle of the night for
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me personally because I knew I’d be up in a few hours and I wouldn’t want that kind of
Nicole:
like groggy, tired feeling.
Nicole:
Whereas if you’re someone that is going to bed like 11 midnight and you know, you know that
Nicole:
you can sleep in till 8, 9, 10 or later, then you know, you could take something more
Nicole:
sedating in the night like Skullcap for example.
Nicole:
And I have found.
Nicole:
Oh my God, skullcap rant.
Nicole:
But I have found skullcap one of the most effective herbs at supporting people to like
Nicole:
shift ongoing nightmares like post trauma.
Nicole:
And most of that trauma has been like prison related.
Nicole:
And people who’ve gone through repression who find that kind of of nighttime difficult
Nicole:
because they’ve been raided in the morning.
Nicole:
So there’s this like fear alert protective mechanism of the nervous system waking them
Nicole:
up.
Nicole:
I mean it’s also just caught us all.
Nicole:
But it’s waking them up because they’re frightened of getting raided and any noise
Nicole:
they hear in the night, they’re just waking up.
Nicole:
Or like I’ve mentioned several times, like prison is like quite a scary time in terms of
Nicole:
people,
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you know, dying or self harming or going on like noises, keys, like all of this ****.
Nicole:
So it’s like, like there’s a lot of like nighttime related trauma that kind of is like
Nicole:
persistent.
Nicole:
So yeah, so I found skullcap over like several weeks or months has just supported that person
Nicole:
to access this parasympathetic time which sets them up for much better sleep and is having
Nicole:
all these like nerve tonic actions which is like supporting them longer term recover and
Nicole:
then yeah, it’s just doing something for helping them to get into that like,
Nicole:
like deeper, deeper sleep that is kind of like more nourishing where maybe they’re having
Nicole:
nightmares but they’re not like waking up from them.
Nicole:
They’re not in that kind of like light sensitive sleep state.
Nicole:
Does that make sense?
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So yeah.
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So please check out the herbal support for
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nightmares section because there’s much more in there.
Nicole:
Oh, sorry, I forgot to say about lavender, but.
Nicole:
Oh my God,
Nicole:
lavender oil.
Nicole:
I’ll still use that now if I wake up from a
Nicole:
bad dream, I’ll kind of put that on myself because I can, you know, just like function
Nicole:
the next day with lavender still on me.
Nicole:
Okay.
Nicole:
So there are also other Drivers of nightmares, which I’ve forgotten to mention, which are
Nicole:
things like nutritional deficiencies.
Nicole:
And I have obviously done that whole podcast about nutritional deficiencies and depletion.
Nicole:
But like things like vitamin D,
Nicole:
hell, I’ve had so many people that have just started taking on vitamin D supplement and A,
Nicole:
they’ve just felt better in general, but B, like their nightmares have shifted.
Nicole:
There’s been like a fair bit of kind of peer reviewed research connecting like the
Nicole:
prevalence of nightmares with vitamin D,
Nicole:
also vitamin B1, which is really interesting.
Nicole:
So yeah, in my PTSD course I have like the papers organised around this stuff.
Nicole:
But yeah, it’s not uncommon that there’s like a bunch of other nutritional deficiencies that
Nicole:
could be, for example, feeding into like general anxiety and activation, you know, like
Nicole:
vitamin B12 or their fatty acid profile or vitamin A,
Nicole:
vitamin E, like all the things like.
Nicole:
Yeah, and the other factor could also be
Nicole:
someone’s like blood sugar stuff like waking them up in the night.
Nicole:
I don’t know the research between blood sugar and nightmares, but I think that would be
Nicole:
something to look into.
Nicole:
Okay, I feel like.
Nicole:
Sorry, I’ve just been reviewing my notes and
Nicole:
seeing if I’ve missed anything out.
Nicole:
But yeah, okay, I think I’m gonna stop there.
Nicole:
Oh, sorry.
Nicole:
There’s also herbs like Bettany that have
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literally got this like historical association.
Nicole:
Nightmares and yeah, okay, I’m gonna stop talking but if you’re interested in this
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stuff,
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I’ve got a whole section on herbal support for nightmares in my Herbalism and State Violence
Nicole:
book.
Nicole:
Oh my God.
Nicole:
Side note, PM Press have just emailed me the final PDF about to go to print.
Nicole:
Don’t know when the.
Nicole:
I’m gonna have time to like double check 440
Nicole:
pages, but I’ll have to make it happen.
Nicole:
But yeah, so that’s exciting.
Nicole:
Thank you so much everyone.
Nicole:
If you’ve ordered it on the Kickstarter.
Nicole:
Woohoo.
Nicole:
But yeah, please check herbal support for nightmares episode where I actually talk about
Nicole:
the specific herbs in detail.
Nicole:
But yeah, I think this one is really useful if you just kind of want to look at the,
Nicole:
you know, the other patterns, other influences of what could be going on if you’re
Nicole:
experiencing nightmares.
Nicole:
I’m sorry, I feel for you.
Nicole:
They’re horrendous.
Nicole:
But like I mentioned, like multi strand approach.
Nicole:
Is it a food intolerance? Is it traumatic memories that need to be kind
Nicole:
of processed and worked through?
Nicole:
Is it nervous system safety and building in that sort of parasympathetic time?
Nicole:
Is it just the vitamin D deficiency? Do you know what I mean.
Nicole:
So, yeah, have a little think, and I hope you found something useful in this episode.
Nicole:
Last Shameless Plug but the Herbalism, PTSD and Traumatic Stress course closes this
Nicole:
Sunday,
Nicole:
so please, please, please check it out.
Nicole:
I’ve got a whole lesson in there about sleep,
Nicole:
where I’m talking about this stuff in more detail.
Nicole:
And any of the herbs I’ve mentioned are very likely to be explored in there.
Nicole:
There’s 32 plants with an affinity for the nervous system system that you can listen to
Nicole:
and watch and.
Nicole:
Yeah, okay.
Nicole:
Thank you for listening and take care.
Nicole:
Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.
Nicole:
You can find the transcript, the links, all the resources from the
Nicole:
[email protected] podcast.
