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Optimizing Sleep as an Antidote for Trauma

Exploring an Underutilized Treatment Opportunity
Ralph Carson LD RD PhD
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Overview

Research suggests that almost 90% of Americans are exposed to at least one potentially traumatic event during their lives (Kirkpatrick ’13). Insomnia is one of the most common sleep issues related to trauma. It’s normal for a traumatic experience to affect the quantity and quality of sleep. More severe and persistent sleep disorders are associated with PTSD and both are predominant in the eating disorder and mood and anxiety population. Since PTSD is a condition characterized by recurrent and involuntary memories of the traumatic event (flashbacks, nightmares), it makes sense that introducing treatment strategies aimed at improving sleep should play a pivotal role in recovery. Researchers have found evidence that multiple overlapping brain regions are implicated in both PTSD and sleep problems.

This course addresses how memory consolidation during sleep is responsible for many of the consequences experienced by people struggling with trauma/PTSD. Treating sleep is necessary for effective trauma resolution and this overview of trauma presents timely interventions (Imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT), exposure response prevention (ERP), rescripting, relaxation therapy (ERRT), sleep hygiene; cognitive behavioral treatment for insomnia (CBT-I); unique pharmacological therapy (α and β- adrenergic blockers). Furthermore, this talk will provide an unlikely and underutilized treatment for trauma/PTSD and expound on the sleep dysregulation that trauma generates.

Learning Objectives

  • Identify the different brain areas and pathways that can be disrupted from trauma and how they overlap with sleep
  • Assess how disrupted sleep can worsen trauma and contribute to PTSD
  • Describe the ways that quality sleep can be therapeutic for trauma
  • Incorporate strategies for reducing or eliminating nightmares and for improving sleep

Course enrollment grants one year of access to said educational content (from date of purchase). All refunds must be requested within seven (7) days of enrollment. In order to qualify for a refund, learners must have progressed through less than 10% of the educational content in question. All refunds will be processed minus a 10% transaction fee.

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