From insomnia, burnout and zero answers to functional health coaching
Remember that time?
When you were full of energy, when sleep was nothing you ever thought about, and when tiredness wasn’t a thing?
Now, you are too exhausted to play with your kids. Spending quality time with your partner sounds unachievable. Taking care of the household and work often feels overwhelming. You could move into a candy store judging by the cravings you have. Why can't you close your eyes and wake up with the alarm like you used to? For some reason, your sleep sucks.
You’re tense and drained. You've scoured the internet, tried every remedy from melatonin to magnesium, bought a sleep tracker and an expensive new mattress - but sleep still isn’t there
Why has nothing worked? Because you’re throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. You’re focusing on mental stress only and forgetting physical stressors. There might be more than one thing causing your problems.
I’m a two-time burnout-recovered mom and former Senior HR Manager. I coached all people leaders on resiliency - and ignored my body’s red flags like a pro.
What were my red flags? Getting hefty colds and infections that would not resolve - even with antibiotics. Being bloated every night. Having issues eating foods I used to be able to enjoy and … waking up in the middle of the night not being able to fall back asleep for months on end.
This became such a problem that I eventually crashed and had to stop working for a while. Doctors never found anything wrong with me - it must be stress - they said.
Why can’t I sleep?
This was my million-dollar question (I’m sure it’s yours, too). I was drained, but I couldn’t sleep. I was up every night between 1 AM and 3 AM. I felt like I had lost control over my sleep. I couldn’t get it back.
My life ran on autopilot because I was too exhausted to try anything fun or new. My relationships with my family and friends were starting to suffer, and I was not fun to be around. All my doctors had to offer were sleeping pills and meditation.
I didn’t want pills, and meditation drove me nuts. So, why couldn’t I sleep then? Because my brain, gut and hormones wouldn’t let me.
This is the key that doctors often overlook: Sleep and fatigue issues are not just in your head. You don’t just have too much going on.
That is why meditation and therapy often don’t fix your sleep issues.
You need to dig deeper. There is often more going on. You need to look at every system in your body that might be causing you stress and keeping you from sleeping. What systems am I talking about? Your gut, your hormones, your liver, your mind.
Once I learned how the body and the mind are connected and how I needed to understand my big sleep saboteurs, I was able to address them, get my sleep back, and feel like a million bucks again!
How did I figure that out?
Through functional testing and working with a practitioner who listened to me, looked at my symptoms and put everything together. Since then, it’s been my mission to help women feel great. To feel great, you need to sleep well and to sleep well, your gut and hormones need to be in great shape.
You can do it, too. You just need to find out what’s going on so you can address it. Have a look at my client Kerri’s case. She was in her mid-30s when we started working together, and she came with a history of 15 years of bad sleep.