Client Spotlight: Sleep & Hormones
When Lisa, 37, reached out to me (she requested her name to be changed for privacy), she was struggling with symptoms that I see quite often in my practice:
PMS symptoms, an irregular cycle, fatigue during the day, and trouble sleeping at night.
Her PMS was predominantly related to her mental health: she would get anxious and depressed. Her cycles varied in length from 31 days to 42 days. During the day she relied on coffee to keep going, running essentially on adrenaline most of the time. Then at night, she would feel wired and her brain would not relax enough to let her get much sleep. It was a vicious cycle, and Lisa had reached a breaking point. She no longer felt like herself and said “I’m like a shell of who I used to be and I feel crazy”.
What we worked on:
I worked with Lisa for 6 months. We started slowly by working on some key foundations. I always describe this work like a pyramid: the biggest foundation for building the pyramid must come before anything else can go on top. And the foundations aren’t fancy expensive products. We started with breakfast since she was rarely eating before 11am. This is an extremely common struggle is see for women - under eating (and especially skipping breakfast). Your body needs to be operating from a place of proper nourishment in order to function well. Additionally, skipping meals (esp. breakfast) sets your body up for more stress and a blood sugar rollercaster ride throughout the day.
Suffice it to say, starting your day with a proper meal is a vital first step.
After working on breakfast, Lisa and I worked on a plan for how she could reduce artificial blue light exposure and also spend time outside (for natural light and exercise). Lisa settled on reading at night before bed instead of scrolling on her phone (win for mental health as well!). This really started to bring her some joy since she always felt she didn’t have time to read.
We then moved on to when she could get outside for a walk. This didn’t feel easy with her work schedule, so Lisa started with taking a brief walk at lunch time. Lisa spends 1 week working from home and one week working in the office, so her schedule varied and that felt tricky at times. We focused on this habit for a while and worked on what days she could walk in the morning and what days her walk was at lunch.
These are examples of some “not sexy” foundations that are important to put in place before you go buying a bunch of supplements and hope for a magic solution. I speak form experience on this, too!
After getting some foundations in place, we worked on repleting her minerals. This started with increasing fruit and veggies daily, and adrenal cocktails.
If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, be sure to download my FREE GUIDE to learn more about minerals and hormone health.
After minerals, we worked on Lisa’s gut health. She had low good bacteria, elevated “bad” bacteria and wasn’t digesting food well. We slowly implemented steps to re-balance her gut.
With each shift, Lisa could tell she was on the right track. The first symptom to improve was her PMS. She didn’t feel as anxious or depressed before her period. As she started eating better and not skipping breakfast, her daytime fatigue lessened. It was easier for her to wind down and fall asleep at night. She was still waking up around 2am and this symptom took longer to improve. Healing also isn’t linear and she certainly had days where she felt she was back-tracking.
We did also run a test to look at Lisa’s hormones. She had low progesterone (I see this A LOT) and elevated estrogen and testosterone, all of which were playing a role in her PMS and sleep issues. Everything we were working on - not skipping meals, getting outside, managing stress, supporting gut health (and liver health too!) were the steps that needed to be taken to support her hormones as well. Of course, there are personalized tweaks we can add to address specific hormonal patterns - these are unique to each person.
When we wrapped up our time together, Lisa’s periods were more regular, her PMS felt immensely easier to manage, and her sleep had improved substantially. She felt confident to continue to work on her own and we set a plan for a check-in session in 4 months.
My goal with clients is to send them off confident and empowered to continue their health progress on their own - and to know I am always here at any point if they should need a “tune-up”.