Everything we do during the day can affect how we sleep from what we eat and drink to when we eat and drink, when and how we exercise, whether or not we get outside to the temperature of the room and the state of our sex life. But today I want to talk about something different in relation to sleep, sex and stress. And that’s our perception of safety.

Today let’s limit our discussion to how the stress and obligations of this time of year can affect our exercise and nutrition patterns. Here are 3 ways we can use awareness, boundaries and connection to help maintain a healthy balance with movement, nutrition and sleep through the holidays even for sugar addicts like me. 

We know there’s more to being healthy than what western medicine would have us believe. A lot more. Particularly for women. We are far more complex physically, mentally and emotionally.

The fact is that health isn’t the absence of disease just like pain doesn’t always equal injury or illness. And the natural aging process is not a disease.

Our modern culture has stripped women of the sacredness of our bodies. Cut us off (sometimes literally) from our intuition. We are hyper sexualized from a young age and then shamed for our sexuality. Modern feminism has masculinized womanhood in the workplace and stripped all honor and reverence away from motherhood at home.

Is it any wonder that women feel exhausted trying to please everyone and have forgotten how to please themselves?

If there’s one thing that every woman I know complains about, it's sleep deprivation. There’s a reason they use it for torture, oops I mean enhanced interrogation. Sleep disturbance every once in a while, a night or 2 here and there, is not a problem. More than 3 nights a week might be. Now I thought it was just me but apparently waking between 2 and 4 AM every night like clock work is pretty common for women in perimenopause and menopause. So today we’re going to take a look at why that happens and what you do about it.

Today kicks off a 4 part series on reclaiming your health. Movement, nutrition, sleep and connection, each of these are levers, access points and communication pathways into the nervous system and each of them can and will affect your nervous system whether you know it or not in both positive and negative ways. Today, I want to kick off our series by looking at sleep. I like to think of sleep as the canary in the coal mine. Often (not always) it’s the first thing we notice when we’re stressed. It’s an easy thing to gauge. How well do you sleep on a regular, consistent basis?

Melanie is a certified EFT therapist with a multi modal approach and years of practice in health care. Melanie takes her knowledge, experience love and light and successfully mentors others. She has coached hundreds into a world of self fulfillment and freedom. She helps clients who feel stuck, find ways out of darkness and bondage by incorporating simple but effective practices that create neural pathways to positivity and happiness. She specializes in difficult challenges, including PTSD, addiction, depression and anxiety. Melanie is a best selling author of the book happy, joyous and free, as well as a sought after inspirational speaker.