My Journey with Cushing’s disease
At 30 years old, I was fit, healthy and naturally a size 8–10. I knew my body well, which is why, when it started to
I recently attended two online conferences running simultaneously for 10 days in a row. There was lots of content on insulin resistance and female hormone balance to consume, digest and process. And what can I say?
By day 3, after the first 10 conversations, I had understood the bottom line: supporting your menstrual health and building a healthy, happy cycle, is a multi-faceted process.
It’s actually more of an open secret, so I don’t believe any of this will be completely new to you:
Good quality sleep, a nutritious, balanced diet (with lots of different vegetables, some complex carbohydrates, some protein, and some healthy fats), moderate movement (not even exercise), and a worry/stress-free lifestyle—or rather, making sure to counterbalance periods of stress and high nervous system activation with periods of total rest and relaxation. Yes, it CAN actually be that simple!
Based on what I’ve learned in my training as a female health coach, the body has a hierarchy of systems and some are more important to our survival. When they’re tended to, the systems further down the line will be able to sort themselves out.
The most important systems are the nervous system (sleep and rest), the lymphatic system (hydration and movement), and the digestive system (balanced diet and rest).
What does make implementation complicated, though, is our individual trauma and societal conditioning.
Believing that simplicity is enough, in a world that tells you you’re never enough and everything has to be earned through hard work and deprivation. Believing that you’re actually allowed to enjoy your life in the time and space that gets freed up when you do the basics well and believe that it’s enough. These are easier said than done.
And then there’s the trauma, which can be anything your system perceives as “too much, too soon, too fast” in the moment.
When your nervous system gets activated (fight-flight-freeze-fawn) and you can’t complete this response and get back to a calm and soothed state, then it gets stored as trauma in the body.
And your nervous system will keep the score until you get the chance or take the time to process and complete it—even if that’s years later.
But once you do, your nervous system will stop flaring up to protect you.
You simply won’t go to the pantry and have a snack to “stuff the pain down” or “fill the hole inside”. You won’t grab the glass (or bottle) of wine to “calm you down”. You won’t throw yourself into your work to forget that you feel miserable and empty inside.
Because you know how to communicate with yourself and your body on what it is you really need right now. A social need? Rest? A good cry? Sport to let off some steam?
It’s about feeling worthy of having needs and getting them fulfilled in healthier, more helpful ways.
A truly holistic approach is best: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual—getting all body systems involved. The concept is simple, but the process of getting there is often anything but. That’s why reaching out to family, friends, resources, or a coach can be truly beneficial to your menstrual wellbeing journey.
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