Night Waking Solved: A Herbal Case Study

Angelina came to me for her sleep problems. She had begun to wake 2-3 times every night and stay awake for 30 minutes to an hour at a time. It had been going on for a few years and this interrupted sleep pattern was resulting in a real sense of daily fatigue.

Angelina had no problem falling asleep when she got into bed around 9:30pm each night. But staying asleep proved tricky. And each time she did wake, Angelina resorted to reading for long periods of time to relax enough to fall back to sleep. This routine was now exhausting and taking up a lot of her night time hours.

The Night-Waking Problem

Insomnia or sleep disturbance can be an interesting problem to solve because the root cause can be caused by three different areas of our human self: the physical body, or the emotions, or the mind. If any of these three are feeling disturbed at night, you can bet your sleep is disturbed too.

Learning to deeply relax the physical body, the emotions, and the mind are key to sleeping like a baby again.

• Relaxing the Physical Body: Your physical body needs to be able to relax properly to sleep well. This is usually achieved by:

1. Making sure the body is clear of stimulants like sugar, adrenaline, caffeine, or too much screen time. Eat 2 hours before bed, no screens an hour before bed.

2. Nourishing the nervous system so that the nerves and muscles have the right nutrients and minerals to help them relax properly

But first let's talk about caffeine! The single most common source of sleep issues I find in the clinic is that people are consuming too much caffeine in the daytime and then their nervous systems are still running this residual caffeine all night long making them prone to waking.

I had one patient who was drinking 6 Coca-Colas per day and then wondering why her sleep was so disrupted at night.

Another male client, Roman, loved his two large coffees with a double shot every morning and was also struggling with his sleep. When I asked him to try halving his caffeine intake, his annoyance with me was palpable and I wasn't sure if I'd ever see him again!

The trouble is that people metabolise caffeine very differently. Just because your neighbour can drink 6 flat whites a day and sleep soundly, doesn't mean you can. I'm personally a caffeine light-weight and can only tolerate one shot of coffee per day before my sleep is affected.

For Angelina though, her caffeine intake was only one coffee per day. She also nominated her diet and exercise at 9/10. And she was going to bed at a very healthy time of 9:30pm. So what was disturbing her sleep all night?

• Relaxing the mind and emotions:

Angelina had a demanding job at an insurance agency and she had ended up accidentally becoming responsible for most of the disgruntled customers. Although this wasn't part of her job description, because she was "good at it", everyone including the boss would send the difficult cases to her. This was resulting in some anxiety about work.

Strategy: I asked Angelina to keep a journal next to her bed at night and do a brain dump of anything on her mind before she went to sleep and to create action points for the next day. This would stop her mind from trying to solve problems in the night when she woke up. She needed to raise the "difficult customer problem" with her boss and have some of this responsibility removed from her role.

Worry time: We also discussed that worry is actually a learned habit - and you can learn to worry less. A simple technique to try is to reserve a time during the day to do your "worrying". I find 2PM a good time for most people. The rest of the day, if your mind starts to worry, you simply tell yourself you need to save that thought for 2pm. It's a great technique to be aware of how much you are worrying and to find some control around it.

Herbal Formula: Herbs can really excel at solving sleep issues because they provide nourishment to exhausted nerves. Think of your nervous system like an electrical wiring system through your body that sends electronic impulses to make your muscles move, your eyes blink and your heart beat. An exhausted nervous system is like a crackly wiring system - and makes the body overresponsive and unable to relax. It's literally jumpy! By nourishing your nerves with herbs you can usually sleep deeper.

Some of the best nervine herbs for sleep are:

• Passionflower

• Skullcap

• Lavender

• Limeflowers

• Chamomile

• St Johns Wort

Angelina's Relaxing herbal formula: Passionflower and Skullcap were the base herbs. Passionflower is a wonderful nervine to calm an overactive mind. I added some Rosemary to help boost brain nourishment and relaxation, some Hawthorn for clearing anxiety from the heart and finally, St John’s Wort to cleanse the mind.

Angelina's Relaxing Sleep Herbal Formula: 210ml

• St John's Wort = 50mL

• Rosemary = 40mL

• Skullcap = 50mL

• Passionflower = 30mL

• Hawthorn = 50mL

Angelina happily reported that she only woke once the first night she took the formula! Over the next 2 weeks, she slept through on the third night and only woke once on the others. Things were improving.

Angelina came back for a month's supply of this personal herbal formula and reported that with the lifestyle tweaks and the formula, she had started sleeping well again with no more sleep issues.

Have you tried using herbs for sleep issues before? Which one has worked best for you – or are you curious to give something new a try? Feel free to book your FREE consultation here.