Episode 87: Hidden Triggers For Insomnia & Solutions For a Stressed Subconscious Nervous System with Dr. Michael Breus
- THA Operations
- 20 hours ago
- 6 min read
When Your Body Won't Let You Sleep
You lie in bed exhausted but wide awake. Your mind races despite being physically depleted. You finally fall asleep only to wake repeatedly through the night or wake too early unable to return to sleep. Sleep medications help temporarily but don't address why your body refuses rest.
What if your insomnia stems from unresolved trauma that keeps your nervous system vigilant even in your own bed?
How does unresolved trauma disrupt your sleep patterns in ways that conventional sleep hygiene can't fix? And what can you actually do about trauma-based insomnia? Your nervous system needs to feel safe before sleep can happen naturally, regardless of how tired you are.
Dr. Michael Breus joins me today as a double board-certified clinical psychologist and clinical sleep specialist known as "The Sleep Doctor." We discuss trauma's profound effects on sleep, how your nervous system processes life experiences, and their lasting impact on rest. Dr. Breus shares unique case studies from his extensive practice and practical solutions for overcoming trauma-based sleep challenges.
Understanding Trauma's Sleep Disruption
How does unresolved trauma disrupt sleep patterns long after traumatic events end? Understanding this connection changes your approach to both trauma healing and insomnia treatment because it reveals why standard sleep interventions fail when trauma underlies your sleep problems.
Past traumas continue affecting current sleep through mechanisms that keep your nervous system activated. Trauma continues disrupting sleep long after the original event. Your nervous system remembers the threat even when your conscious mind has moved on. Your body stays vigilant scanning for danger even years later when you're objectively safe.
The felt sense of safety required for sleep goes deeper than logical knowledge. Falling asleep requires a felt sense of safety in your body rather than just knowing intellectually that you're safe. Not just understanding logically that no threat exists. Your nervous system must feel safety somatically before it allows the vulnerability that sleep represents.
Understanding the Biology of Trauma® reveals why trauma survivors struggle with sleep so consistently. Sleep requires surrendering conscious control and entering states of vulnerability that trauma taught you are dangerous. Your nervous system learned through traumatic experiences that letting your guard down leads to harm. That learning persists in your biology making sleep feel threatening even when you're exhausted.
Freeze Response and Sleep Patterns
The freeze response connects directly to how people use sleep as escapism or avoid sleep because it feels like dangerous surrender. Both patterns relate to trauma through your nervous system's defensive responses. Some people sleep excessively to escape overwhelming feelings through freeze-induced shutdown. Others avoid sleep because the loss of control and awareness triggers their hypervigilance from past trauma.
Stopping the pattern of numbing yourself to fall asleep requires understanding why this approach backfires. Some people use alcohol, medication, or other substances to force sleep by numbing their activation. Dr. Breus explains why this prevents real rest and actually worsens sleep quality long-term. How to stop numbing and actually address what blocks natural sleep involves working with your nervous system rather than overriding it.
Discovering your chronotype, which is your biological sleep-wake preference, improves your sleep cycle dramatically when you align with it. Dr. Breus created the chronotype framework that identifies your natural biological rhythms. Understanding whether you're a lion, bear, wolf, or dolphin chronotype helps you work with your biology rather than fighting it through trying to sleep at times that don't match your natural patterns.
How nightmares block emotional processing represents a counterintuitive finding from sleep research. Nightmares actually prevent healthy emotional processing rather than facilitating it. They replay trauma without resolution or integration. This keeps you stuck psychologically while also disrupting sleep architecture. Your nightmares are your nervous system trying to process trauma but getting stuck in replay rather than completing the experience.
Dream Therapy and Sleep Solutions
Dream therapy for trauma helps people work through traumatic experiences by changing nightmare content intentionally. Dr. Breus explains specific dream therapy techniques including imagery rehearsal therapy where you consciously rewrite nightmare content while awake. Processing experiences safely during sleep becomes possible when you give your nervous system new endings to traumatic scenarios that your nightmares keep replaying.
Feeling simultaneously wired and tired is one of the hallmark experiences of trauma-based insomnia. Trauma makes you feel both activated and exhausted at the same time. Your nervous system stays in sympathetic activation scanning for threats. But your body is depleted from chronic stress and poor sleep. This isn't laziness or poor sleep hygiene but rather biology responding to unresolved trauma.
Two practical calming techniques that Dr. Breus shares specifically work with traumatized nervous systems. For calming both your mind and body before sleep when standard relaxation doesn't work. These techniques address the nervous system activation that trauma creates rather than just trying to force relaxation through willpower.
The practical application involves recognizing your sleep problems as nervous system problems rather than sleep problems alone. When trauma underlies insomnia, you need both trauma healing and sleep-specific interventions. Working with your Biology of Trauma® through regulation practices during the day supports better sleep at night. Your daytime nervous system state determines whether sleep feels safe enough to allow at night.
Integration and Application
Dr. Breus emphasizes that trauma-based insomnia requires addressing both the trauma and the sleep disruption simultaneously. You can't fully resolve sleep problems while trauma keeps your nervous system activated. But you also can't heal trauma effectively without adequate sleep for processing and integration. Both aspects need attention through an integrated approach.
The case studies Dr. Breus shares from his clinical practice demonstrate how understanding trauma's role in sleep problems changes treatment completely. People who failed multiple sleep interventions finally improved when their underlying trauma was recognized and addressed. Their nervous systems could finally allow sleep once they felt safe enough through trauma healing work.
Understanding your chronotype helps you stop fighting your natural biology through trying to sleep at times that don't match your internal rhythms. When you're already struggling with trauma-based insomnia, adding the stress of sleeping at the wrong time for your chronotype makes everything harder. Aligning with your biological preferences removes one barrier to sleep.
For practitioners, recognizing trauma's role in sleep complaints helps you avoid treating sleep in isolation from nervous system healing. Clients need both sleep hygiene education and trauma-informed nervous system work. Referring clients for trauma therapy while also addressing sleep specifically creates better outcomes than treating sleep alone.
The integration of sleep science with trauma healing creates comprehensive approaches that address both why sleep feels unsafe and how to rebuild healthy sleep patterns. Your trauma healing benefits from better sleep that allows processing. Your sleep improves as trauma healing reduces nervous system activation that prevents rest.
This Episode Is For:
✓ People with chronic insomnia related to trauma historyÂ
✓ Anyone whose sleep was disrupted after traumatic experiencesÂ
✓ Practitioners helping clients whose trauma affects sleep qualityÂ
✓ Those feeling simultaneously wired and tiredÂ
✓ Anyone with nightmares that replay traumatic contentÂ
✓ People whose sleep problems don't respond to standard interventions
What You'll Learn
Listen to understand how trauma creates hidden sleep triggers through nervous system dysregulation and what practical solutions work for calming a stressed subconscious nervous system. Discover why nightmares block rather than facilitate processing. Learn your chronotype and two specific calming techniques for trauma-based insomnia.
Your insomnia might be your nervous system's inability to feel safe enough for sleep's vulnerability.
Disclaimer
This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The information shared reflects my clinical expertise and research, but every person's biology and healing journey is unique. Always consult with qualified healthcare providers before making changes to your treatment plan or starting new interventions. If you're experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact emergency services or a crisis helpline immediately.
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