When someone experiences trauma, we often focus on what happened. But just as important is what’s happening inside their brain—often long after the event has passed. And if sleep is disrupted, the brain’s ability to heal is compromised.
Trauma affects several key areas of the brain:
• The Amygdala becomes hyperactive. It’s the brain’s fear centre, and trauma turns its dial way up—leading to heightened anxiety, vigilance, and startle responses (van der Helm et al., 2011).
• The Prefrontal Cortex, responsible for reasoning, decision-making, and emotional regulation, goes offline under stress. This makes it harder to stay calm, manage impulses, or think clearly (Palmer & Alfano, 2017).
• The Hippocampus, which helps process memory and distinguish between past and present, shrinks in volume when trauma is unaddressed, leading to confusion, flashbacks, and a feeling of being stuck in the past (Germain, 2013).
• The Brainstem stays alert, keeping the body in survival mode and making it hard to rest or feel safe, even in safe environments (AIFS, 2018).
Poor sleep compounds this damage.
When a trauma-disrupted brain doesn’t receive rest, it can’t recalibrate. The amygdala stays inflamed. The prefrontal cortex can’t catch up. Memory processing is interrupted. Inflammation spreads. And the nervous system remains stuck in a loop of high alert (Sopp et al., 2023).
For children whose brains are still developing, the consequences are even more profound. Growth hormone release, emotional learning, and synaptic pruning—all depend on quality sleep (El-Sheikh & Sadeh, 2015).
Here’s what studies now show in regard to sleep’s role in trauma recovery:
- REM Sleep helps the brain process emotional memories and downregulate fear-based responses (van der Helm et al., 2011).
- Deep Sleep (Slow-Wave Sleep) facilitates the clearance of neurotoxins from the brain via the glymphatic system—essential after trauma, when neuroinflammation is elevated (Xie et al., 2013).
- Sufficient Sleep Duration in children buffers against the emotional and cognitive fallout of trauma (Barrett et al., 2025).
- High-Quality Sleep supports memory integration, emotional regulation, and overall neurological recovery after trauma exposure (Sopp et al., 2023; Germain, 2013).
Sleep doesn’t erase trauma, but it gives the brain the environment it needs to heal from it.
When we restore sleep, we’re not just helping someone “feel better.” We’re creating the conditions for actual neurological recovery.
We’re helping a child learn again. Helping a parent make clearer decisions and be the calming presence her child needs. Helping brains come back online and heal—one night at a time.
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References
1. Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS). (2018). The effect of trauma on brain development in children. Read the report
2. Barrett, E., Coote, T., & Grummitt, L. (2025). Sleep duration in adolescence buffers the impact of childhood trauma on anxiety and depressive symptoms. BMC Public Health, 25, Article 437. Read the study
3. El-Sheikh, M., & Sadeh, A. (Eds.). (2015). Sleep and development: Advancing theory and research. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 80(1), 1–215. Read the monograph
4. Germain, A. (2013). Sleep and REM sleep disturbance in the pathophysiology of PTSD: The role of extinction memory. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 112, 17–23. Read the study
5. Palmer, C. A., & Alfano, C. A. (2017). Sleep and emotion regulation: An organizing, integrative review. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 31, 6–16. Read the study
6. Sopp, M. R., Brünken, M., & Pape, H. C. (2023). Neural correlates of sleep-induced benefits on traumatic memory processing. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 202, Article 107779. Read the study
7. van der Helm, E., Yao, J., Dutt, S., Rao, V., Saletin, J. M., & Walker, M. P. (2011). REM sleep depotentiates amygdala activity to previous emotional experiences. Current Biology, 21(23), 2029–2032. Read the study
8. Xie, L., Kang, H., Xu, Q., Chen, M. J., Liao, Y., Thiyagarajan, M., … & Nedergaard, M. (2013). Sleep drives metabolite clearance from the adult brain. Science, 342(6156), 373–377. Read the study