Today we are talking about sleep and hot flashes. For the past few weeks we’ve been talking about how menopause and perimenopause affects our bones, our muscles, our pelvic floor, our gut, our brain, our metabolism and more and perhaps you’ve already noticed some of the connections between all of these areas. Sleep is one of those integral connections. How we sleep no matter what season of life we’re in is the canary in the coal mine. If we don’t sleep well we don’t function well and it’s an indicator that we aren’t functioning well. In perimenopause and menopause it’s the number one complaint for women. Not that we can’t get to sleep but that we can’t stay asleep. And the culprit is often the dreaded hot flash. What is going on here and what can we do about it? That’s the question for today’s Work IN.

Today we’re talking about the gut and gut health. We have discussed the importance of the gut microbiome in previous podcasts but never in relation to perimenopause and menopause. And that’s because no one really knew that was a thing until very recently. But it makes sense though since our gut and the biodiversity of the microbiome affects every other aspect of our health why wouldn’t our hormone balance be involved in some way.

Menopause brain…We say it like it’s a bad thing. We laugh it off as if it’s a joke when deep down we wonder if we’re losing our mind. It’s not a joke. And it’s not a loss either. It’s actually an update. During perimenopause and menopause every system in our body gets a giant hormonal update over the course of a decade or so. And just like when we update our computers or our phones, it takes time to learn the new systems. Things might look a little different on the home page than what we’re used to. The drop down menus change. That’s our Work IN today. We’re looking at how and why a woman’s brain changes through menopause.

Taylor Byrer is a holistic nurse coach and owner of Byrer Integrative Wellness . She is a former ICU nurse who after suffering from burnout for years, shifted to travel nurse and finally left the ICU to be a post surgical recovery nurse in an attempt to try to escape chronic stress and physical dysfunction in her body.

She was forced to take a step back and truly listen to her body. During the process of healing herself through many different modalities, Taylor discovered integrative wellness coaching. Her background and experience as an ICU nurse, journey of self healing and her passion for serving others has given her a unique perspective and mission of advocacy for her clients helping them become their own best advocate.

We can still bring the burn for our students without sinking into burnout ourselves. Part of the process is learning to navigate our own stress curve better so then we can help our students.

One part of that navigation process is to begin to integrate an understanding of our nervous system into our class design.

Burnout is really characterized by three things beyond the fatigue, feeling emotionally drained feeling overwhelmed. Those pieces are part of burnout. But when you are waking up more days of the week than not, and you feel as though your work is unmanageable or that your work is a burden, or that you have lost the joy and passion that you previously had for your work. You're likely in a state of burnout.