Learn Powerful Sleep Hacks For Insomnia

Now, how do we break the cycle? How do we actually address trauma? There are three essential components. And in this interview, we talk about one of them quite a bit and that would be the somatic piece. And in the 21-day journey, that is exactly what I am helping people with, in this 21-day journey we are starting with this piece here which is the body or the somatic work. Now I choose to start people here because even though the parts working with the stories and the narratives that we have, the belief systems that we have and especially working with the biology of trauma, what we are talking about here on this summit, the fact that trauma has become our biology and our biology keeps us stuck in a trauma physiology, where I start people is the 21-day journey in this bodywork or this somatic work. Why? Because when we do that and we can learn how to create a felt sense of safety for ourselves it changes the other things. Just like what we are going to talk about in this interview where it changes our sleep. We have evidence of that. Those people who go into my 21-day journey they experience 26% decrease in their daily physical pain, 28% decrease in sleep issues just by doing that somatic essential element. You are going to need all three of those for your whole healing journey just starting with the somatic work. We can even mention this specific exercise in the interview today. And being able to address that already will help with the sleep issues.

Now, to help me with this conversation on sleep is my good friend Suzie Senk. She is a functional medicine practitioner, holistic sleep specialist, speaker, author, and mother. She offers integrative solutions to modern-day sleep challenges. And helps people of all ages get a better night’s sleep quickly and easily. What she does is she creates personalized developmentally appropriate gentle sleep solutions for families with young children and profound yet practical custom wellness programs for teens and adults. She has been someone who I have found very useful in terms of bringing in the practical solutions for some very challenging issues around sleep. Let us dive into this interview and talk about trauma, and sleep, how to break this cycle, and actually use sleep to build our resilience and allow more space and capacity to do trauma work. Susie, with all that sleep is for, especially for those who have experienced trauma and they need sleep in order to even do the trauma work. Let us give them some facts for how to sleep when sleep would not come. For those people who, and you know this because you have been through the 21-day journey, when people’s systems are just so anxious and so burnt out, what, I mean, tell us even just how better sleep can help them, first of all, just have greater capacity and greater space, greater resilience for doing trauma work?

Suzie Senk

Right. As we were talking about just before we got started and I know I am preaching to the choir here with you, Dr. Aimie, sleep and not being able to sleep and the issues that cause trauma and cause the trauma response go so hand-in-hand and they are so intrinsic with each other because it is basically the same physiological process in the body and then the same experience that we have. And it is kind of a chicken and egg situation, especially when we look at PTSD, for example, we do not know whether it is the sleep deprivation that is causing the PTSD or the PTSD that is then causing the sleep challenges but either way, you cut it. You have to be able to sleep well in order to be able to heal from trauma. And when we are looking at someone who is what part of your audience who might be listening to this and they are dealing with or they suspect that they might have trauma making sure that you prioritize getting good sleep is so important. But it is very frustrating because frequently people who are dealing with trauma and wanting to heal trauma are also really struggling to get good sleep. And you were asking, what are some hacks that people can do in order to be able to sleep better at night? The first thing, especially when we are dealing with trauma is that you really want to think about what is going on for you throughout the day and try to decrease the amount of stress that you are experiencing in the day. And you were so wonderful to allow me to experience the 21-day journey and it is such a perfect option for people. One of the things that I love about the 21-day journey is that it is not a talking-about process it is a doing process and that is exactly what we need to do in order to be able to sleep better. We need to shift our bodies from being in this hyper-vigilant state. But, unfortunately, when you have experienced trauma it is in way too high of a percentage and you need to actually do the things that are going to make your nervous system experience calm and experience a sense of safety during the daytime so that you can then sleep better at night. Because if you are in an amped-up state all day long there is absolutely no way that you are going to be able to then shift gears and be able to sleep at night. That is the first thing for sure.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

And this is true. Because I have noticed that many people, have so much adrenaline from their day because they are either in stress or they are causing themselves stress but they have so much adrenaline, and literally adrenaline is still coursing through their blood, and then they go to lay down and you are not going to be able to fall asleep while that adrenaline is still coursing through your body. And the amount of stress that we are exposed to during our day will depend on how much adrenaline is still in our body, in our blood, when we go to bed at night, and how much time we need to just lay there for it to finally pass.

Suzie Senk

Right. Just to explain this a little bit. We have cortisol in our body that is a hormone that is supposed to be highest in the morning to wake us up, to help us have the energy to get out of bed. And then as we go throughout our day when we have a healthy system the cortisol will decrease as melatonin is rising. And then cortisol should be rock bottom in the middle of the night while we are sleeping and melatonin should be high. Melatonin is the hormone that tells our body that it is time to sleep and that it is time to wind down. Well, when we have cortisol, when we have dysregulated cortisol, the body is basically burning cortisol for too long then you will get those surges of adrenaline that your body can do the functions that it needs to when cortisol is not able to do its job. 

And one of the other things that is really important that people would probably not associate with sleep or with trauma is making sure that you are eating a balanced diet with balanced blood sugar levels. Because if you don’t eat a balanced diet then what is going to happen is that you are going to have a blood sugar drop or a blood sugar spike in the middle of the night which is also going to cause those adrenaline surges so that your blood pressure can be normalized. And another hack is making sure that you are eating healthy, nutritious meals in a balanced way at regular times throughout the day and not snacking. And again, this is one of those chicken and egg things because people who struggle with trauma are already dealing with low energy, they are dealing with emotional dysregulation. And one of the ways that people self-soothe is by going and getting snacky foods to help them either get through their day energy-wise or just to help them feel better. And it is really important to kind of take back the reins of what you are doing and be more conscious about how you are eating. And snacking is not good. Ideally, what you want to have is three good-sized meals per day that leave you feeling full where you do not feel hungry in between meals and you do not need to snack. And generally what that looks like is having enough protein, about a palm-sized amount of protein, whatever your size and thickness of your palm, and then having more than half of your plate filled with green leafy vegetables and then a little bit of complex carbs. Again, that is the part that most people need to play with because some people need more complex carbohydrates and some people need less. But if you eat and end some healthy fat, if you eat that way and you eat that way in a meal then you should be able to easily feel full and satiated and get through to your next meal. And that is going to help with your mood, that is going to help with your energy levels, and that is really also going to help with your sleep so that you do not get those adrenaline surges in the middle of the night.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

I was literally at a conference the other day and someone asked the question, “What about those people who wake up in the middle of the night and panic?” And of course, the room is full of therapists and they are all thinking, well, that person clearly has PTSD. And honestly, Suzie, the first thing that came to my mind was blood sugar levels.

Suzie Senk

And in addition to food, a lot of people who struggle with trauma or who are super stressed out lean on alcohol in order to relax them in the night and that is such a no, no because it causes blood sugar surges in the middle of the night, first, you get relaxed then you feel tired and you fall asleep but then inevitably the liver and the blood sugar will wake you up in the middle of the night in order to detoxify the alcohol content that is in your body. Not choosing alcohol as a way to help yourself deal with the trauma or the stress that you are experiencing is another really important thing to do and instead, you could. Sorry, Aimie, I see you were going to say something. Instead, you could replace it with a different kind of relaxing ritual, for example, taking a bath before bed and Epsom salt bath is a fantastic choice because it is going to get magnesium into your body which is really important for sleep, it is also going to, in the short term, increase your internal body temperature and then cool you down. And having a drop in your body temperature is another way that your body gets cued that it is time to sleep. A calming bath with maybe lavender essential oil and Epsom salts would be a fantastic alternative to that nightly glass of wine.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

Or that nightly bowl of ice cream.

Suzie Senk

Exactly. That was in my mind. That was what going to come out of my mouth next. Yeah.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

Yeah. Because I remember when I was still in the middle of my stress and burnout in my old way of living and it was so frequent that I would get to the end of my day and I would be so exhausted from having pushed myself all day and all this stress that I would overeat in order to relax and then that process would make me so tired. I think just the overeating would make me so tired that I would fall asleep but then I would wake up feeling awful and I would wake up in the middle of the night, I am feeling awful, I am feeling hot and sweaty from all this food that I ate and my body is trying to burn off those calories and of course, it was never healthy food, it was the carbs and the fat as well with the ice cream and the sugars. And what a vicious cycle that was because then, of course, I wake up the next day and I am tired and I do not feel well and I still have this kind of hangover from the food of the night before and I am starting my day already stressed, already not feeling well, and I repeat the cycle again where I push myself all day long, and then I use food before bedtime to help myself relax to fall asleep, but then it does not give me restful sleep at all.

Suzie Senk

I have done the exact same thing more times than I care to count. And here is the thing that I noticed in my experience of that. When the immune system is hyper-vigilant when we feel like we cannot stop because if we stop, and this might not be a conscious thought, but if we stop then there will be a danger, if we stop it is a threat to our life. That is what the subconscious mind and the nervous system thinks is that if we slow down we will die. And at least for me it was a nonconscious and unconscious way to just keep going. That extra little bit of sugar at the end of the day means that I can just get a couple more things done and then everything might be a little bit better instead of actually having the self-care, the awareness of self-care, and the prioritization of that to be able to go, you know what, it is nighttime, it is dark outside, there is nothing beneficial that I am going to be able to accomplish for the rest of my day so it is time to be done, it is time to let the day go and relax and put it all behind me and do something for myself. And I think that is really difficult for a lot of people who are dealing with trauma. And it is, again, one of the things that I absolutely love about the 21-day journey because it requires, doing that journey, it requires you to do those things that you would not normally prioritize for yourself because you just do not think that they are important but that journey walks you through and kind of forces you to take that time and to reprioritize in that way.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

And I will say that there are many people who take the 21-day journey, not necessarily everyone but there are many who in the middle of it find themselves with that same realization that it has not felt safe for me to relax, it has not felt safe for me to slow down and I was not even conscious of it, I was not even aware that that is why I was pushing myself so hard, that is why I have been keeping myself so busy, and that now that I am doing these things that promote a sense of relaxation, promote a sense of safety, I can actually get anxiety with that because it does not feel safe to relax yet. And then, of course, how is your body going to sleep? Because sleep requires us to relax, I mean, we can fall asleep with exhaustion but it is not going to be restful sleep, it is the restful sleep when we can go into sleep feeling that all is well, I am safe and so I can rest. It is a very different sleep than the exhausted rest of just falling asleep out of exhaustion.

Suzie Senk

Yeah. Collapsing.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

Collapsed.

Suzie Senk

Yeah. And I was listening to something the other day and it is interesting because biologically we are designed to sleep, however, due to all of the insane chaos of our modern lives it is not normal to sleep anymore. You actually have to work at sleep. And even for someone who is not dealing with trauma you have to consciously stop your life, put away the devices, turn off the lights, and do all the things that you have to do to create an environment for sleep. And that is weird because it was never like that before we had all this technology but now we have to consciously work at sleep. And for someone who is dealing with trauma that is double the case because not only do you have all these external stimuli that are telling you there is no reason that you need to sleep, you can keep doing whatever it is that you are doing because the lights are on and the Wi-Fi is going. When you are dealing with someone who has trauma it is also their internal system that is also saying, you can not go to sleep, you have to stay awake, you have to stay aware.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

For someone who notices that they have trauma patterns and their system is more sensitive, more reactive to the sensory environment whether that be lights, whether that be sounds, whether that be Wi-Fi, but their system is just in general more sensitive, more reactive, what are those things that they can build into their environment to help them get that rest that they need?

Suzie Senk

Okay. You have probably heard of sleep hygiene. And sleep hygiene is kind of an umbrella term for all the things that we can actively do, that we can actively control about how we approach sleep. And I know because it is used so frequently it can be something that is easily dismissed, yeah, sleep hygiene, whatever, it does not really work when in reality for at least 50% of the people who are struggling with sleep challenges, if they just are really dialed in their sleep hygiene, their sleep would come back online and they would sleep through the night, no problem. When we are talking about environment we are talking about things like light, your exposure to light, I call it your light diet, what type of light you are being exposed to, at what times of day, and making sure that you get early morning sunlight because that cues your body that it is time to wake up and it helps with that cortisol melatonin production cycle that I was talking about. And then also making sure that you are not exposed to blue and green spectrums of light after sunset. And again, this is really tricky in our modern culture because if you are using normal light bulbs they have mostly blue light coming out of them, if you are looking at screens it is mostly blue light, so you really need to make a conscious choice to do something different and that might be changing out the light bulbs in your house, making sure that they are dim at night using red light bulbs instead of the regular compact fluorescents at night or using a type of circadian rhythm glasses if you are going to need to be on your computer at night, those are things that can help with the light. Also making sure that the bedroom is super dark because you want it to be like you are sleeping in a cave. And if you are exposing your brain, your eyes, and your skin to light at night it is going to tell your brain that it should be awake in the middle of the night. And those lights that are coming that have that blue spectrum of light are telling your brain that it is high noon at any time of the day or the night and then it sends your body into that hyper-vigilant state because it is supposed to be alert. It is really counterproductive for someone who is trying to sleep well. Also. Sorry. Go ahead.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

It is not going to be enough for someone just to wear an eye mask that blocks the light from their eyes because if their skin is still receiving the light, their skin is still receiving that message of, hey, it is time to be awake.

Suzie Senk

Right. And unfortunately, even if you do not have the lights on in your house if you live in an urban environment there is ambient light from all around you, and getting really good blackout shades is really important. There are so many things that we need to be aware of, especially with someone with a hyper-vigilant immune system. Because even if you get blackout shades if they are off-gassing that could be something that is keeping you awake at night. Making sure that you have natural materials in your bedroom is very important for someone who has a hyper-vigilant immune system. Also, that temperature drop at night is going to be really important. If you have a thermostat that has the same temperature all day and all night then you are not getting that cue from your body that it must be nighttime because it is cooler, so you want to make sure that it is much cooler at night while you are sleeping. 

Another thing, especially for people with trauma is making sure that your bedroom environment is a place where you actually feel safe because there are different triggers for people who have experienced trauma. And you do this so well in the 21-day journey, but specifically, the practice where you go through your house and you touch the walls and you make sure that you are grounded and that you feel safe in your space, especially you want to do that for your bedroom and make sure that everything in your bedroom is something that feels safe to you. For example, if you experience, I am just going off on a tangent here, but if you experience trauma from being in a negative relationship and you still have a picture of your family and someone in the family member that you experience trauma with is in your bedroom, get it out of your bedroom, that is not a good thing for you and it might not be something that you immediately associate with feeling unsafe. You really have to go into your bedroom with a conscious awareness and an open mind of feeling what feels unsafe to you even if it does not make logical sense. If you go into your bedroom and you are like, you know what, that is just not right, do it differently for yourself. 

And then the one other thing that I want to mention is EMFs. Because EMFs are something that there is a lot of misinformation out there, there is a lot of confusion about EMFs. However, if you are someone who is hypersensitive or who is dealing with trauma, I would definitely recommend that you get all of the electronics that you can out of your bedroom and try to sleep in an EMF-mitigated sleep sanctuary and see how it is for you. Because not everyone is as sensitive to EMFs as some people are. But if you are dealing with trauma it is definitely something that I would look at. And it really might be the difference between you feeling like you can get a good night’s sleep or not.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

I would imagine that for someone who is coming along in and saying, I have tried so many things, and being able to just take one of these hacks, one of these tools and saying, alright, I am going to give this a try and I am going to just implement this. Even just with one of these things, it is possible that they can experience an improvement in their sleep. Obviously, the more that they apply the better and better sleep that they have the potential of having. But even just starting with one thing could start to make improvement in their sleep.

Suzie Senk

Absolutely. And the other thing to know is that nobody gets a perfect night of sleep every night of their lives and it is going to be a process, especially when you are dealing with a hyper-vigilant immune system and hyper-vigilant nervous system it is going to take a while for your body to heal. And be patient with yourself, be patient in the process. And if you wake up at night definitely do not turn on bright lights, do not do things that are stimulating for yourself. Breathing is an excellent option to do in the middle of the night. There is box breathing which is a really simple breathing technique where you just breathe in for four seconds, hold it for four seconds, exhale for four seconds and hold it for four seconds and you can just do that while you lay in bed and relax and see what happens. If you allow yourself to do that for three to five minutes you might find that you are able to fall back asleep. Because again, what you are wanting to do, what is happening when you are waking up in the middle of the night and you can not fall back asleep is that your nervous system is in a sympathetic state and you are trying to get it back into a parasympathetic state and one of the quickest fastest oldest time-tested ways to do that is to change your breathing and see if it works for you.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

For a person who is starting to look at all of this, is there one suggestion that you would have on this is where you can start, this would be a really simple thing to start with, definitely plan on doing it all but this is the easiest thing to just start with. What would you have them start with?

Suzie Senk

I really feel like for this audience, for your audience, Aimie, and for the people who are listening, the most important place to start is thinking about safety and how you need to feel safe like what is it that you need to feel safe in your life. And if you are taking care of that then it is automatically going to dramatically improve your sleep and help you sleep better.

Aimie Apigian, MD, MS, MPH

What are you going to start with today, you are going to start with the Epsom salt baths at night? I love those. My system loves those with that lavender Epsom salt. Or are you going to start with cooling the temperature down? I also do that. What are you going to start with, the blue light-blocking glasses? What can you start with today? Just start with something now. Do not wait for perfection just start with what you can right now and even if you just improve your sleep five percent, even if you just improve your sleep two percent that will be worth it to just give your system a little more resilience for going into tomorrow. Do not forget that you have resources here. And that you can purchase all of these interviews so that you can come back to them at any time. Reference them, reference the tools, reference the strategies, the hacks that are taught in these interviews, and all these interviews in this entire summit so that you have everything that you need. You are well-resourced for living life differently. I am your host for this summit The Biology of Trauma 3.0, where we are exploring the trauma-disease connection. And I look forward to seeing you on the next interview.