Sleep and Trauma
Sleep profoundly influences our emotional state and perception of the world. Andrew emphasizes that while traumatic experiences are never forgotten, it's possible to reframe their emotional weight. He advocates for a deeper understanding of waking states, akin to our knowledge of sleep, to enhance our emotional resilience and overall well-being.In this clip
From this podcast
Dhru Purohit Show
#224: Reprogram Your Brain to Destroy Laziness and Improve Focus with Dr. Andrew Huberman
Related Questions
Is it correct to say that if someone had a childhood trauma that wasn't processed, when they start to address this trauma in adulthood, they could begin to have dreams or nightmares about it, especially during REM sleep? Once the brain has new information that could potentially change the narrative around the trauma, and the person is consciously working to unload the emotional burden during their waking hours, could the brain also reprocess the old narratives and emotional trauma during REM sleep? This question is in relation to the episode Dr. Paul Conti: Therapy, Treating Trauma & Other Life Challenges | Huberman Lab Podcast #75 and the clip Confronting Emotional Arousal.
Is it right to say that if someone had a childhood trauma that wasn't processed back then, when they start to address this trauma in adulthood, they could begin to have dreams or nightmares about it, especially during REM sleep? Once the brain has new information that could potentially change the narrative around the trauma, and the person is consciously working to take off the emotional load during their waking hours, could the brain also reprocess the old narratives and emotional trauma during REM sleep?
I have a question about this episode Dr. Matt Walker: The Science of Dreams, Nightmares & Lucid Dreaming | Huberman Lab Guest Series and this clip Rewriting Nightmares. Andrew talks about a process to erase fear and traumas, and he says that first you need to extinguish the fear or trauma by retelling the narrative. The whole point of that is to diminish the physiological response, right? If the goal is to diminish the physiological response, then if the person works to change their physiological response immediately after being triggered, would that over time also diminish the physiological response and therefore break the conditioning? Am I right? For example, if a person had a traumatic experience with a spider, but every time the person sees the spider or gets activated through some trigger, and immediately after uses breathwork to calm the body, would that work like retelling a narrative to extinguish the fear? Did I miss something?