Difficulty sleeping is often an issue. If avenues such as yoga ,meditation, warm baths or creative expression have not helped try one of these herbal remedies: valerian or passionflower or skullcap.

If you are using valerian capsules, it is recommended that you take about four an hour or so before bed. The impact should last about four hours. If you find yourself waking up in the night, unable to return to sleep, take another four. Most people find this an effective dosage. Be sure only to take valerian for three weeks or so before switching to another herbal remedy as your body will get used to it. After you switch for a couple of weeks, you can go back to the valerian, and it should have the same impact that it initially had.

Passionflower: take in tincture form: 30 to 60 drops

Skullcap: take in tincture form

Using lavender essential oil in a diffuser can also help:6 drops

If you are feeling anxious or frightened the herbal remedies above can help.

If the herbal remedies do not get you to sleep or reduce the anxiety try sedatives/benzodiazepines.

It may be that the process is so intense that sedatives (benzodiazepines) don’t have the required effect.  Antipsychotic medication is the next step. It has been found that the best outcomes (being back to work or study sooner) are achieved by using the smallest possible amount for the shortest possible time. (It is not advisable to reduce or stop prescribed medications without clinical guidance.)

 

 

 

Some people find vigorous exercise like running, very helpful because of the increased amount of energy they are experiencing in their bodies. Others find gentle walking or yoga to be more what they need. Creative exercise eg. Dancing, Drumming or even Hula-hooping can help to release some energy from your body. Let your body move in whatever ways feel natural to you…

Being ’embodied’ – Mindfulness can help us to get grounded and come ‘back to our body’.

It’s important to acknowledge the difference between Mindfulness and Meditation. Meditation can be a means to take us ‘out of body’, but Mindfulness can be a very helpful tool in grounding us back into our bodies if we have become accustomed to being disassociated, maybe due to trauma and the pain we associate with being ‘in our body’. Doing a simple Mindfulness Body scan type can be a very helpful grounding tool.

Developing a ‘witnessing awareness’  – Learning to watch our own thoughts and actions in an inquisitive way can be very helpful in learning what we still need to heal, in addition to not getting pulled too far into our emotions so that they overwhelm us. It’s important to get the balance between not watching to the degree that we absolve all responsibility, but that we gain valuable insight into ourselves in a manageable way.

Listening to our intuition, and learning to discern what is coming from our Ego, and what is from our Higher Self can be a result of doing the above; we come to see what thoughts are helpful to us and which are not serving us.