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.

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.

What does detoxification have to do with menopause? Turns out quite a bit. Today I want to connect the dots between toxicity in our environment, our diet and our nervous system and how that can show up in menopause symptoms and what we can do to buffer ourselves in that transition.

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.

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.