One of the most powerful tools we have to build resilience and overcome chronic stress and trauma is connection. It’s the first thing that is sacrificed in the face of stress injury and yet it is the number one thing we need if we’re going to heal.

In health and wellness, connection has become an overused meaningless word. Just like the words wellness and health. Our work IN today is a deep dive into some of the less obvious meanings of connection and how we can use it beyond the obvious to get and stay healthier physically, mentally and emotionally.

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’ve talked about sleep, nutrition and movement and the things you can do, the small simple things you can do every single day that can have big lasting effects not just on your physical health but also your mental health. The last piece to the puzzle is connection. And it’s a big piece. Bigger than just one solo episode. So I thought I’d bring in some examples of how we can find connections between our health choices and our health and resilience. My guest today is Beth Kruger. Beth is a women's wellness educator, yoga instructor and coach. She’s spent her career supporting women through childbirth, lactation, pregnancy and fertility. She’s a business owner and entrepreneur and has led many women’s wellness retreats all over the world. Her current focus is on menopause and helping women over 40 through this transition.

Today is part 3 of our reclaim your health and resilience series …

You reap the benefits and consequences of everything you do. So that could be work, food, exercise, entertainment, relationships. That’s what this series is all about. Reclaiming your health and resilience is within your control. Everything we do can be a lever. Nutrition is a very powerful lever. Everything you consume becomes a part of you and that makes what you eat a very intimate relationship. But unlike relationships with other people you have complete control of this one.

Today is part 2 of our reclaim your health and resilience series …

Movement of all kinds is a powerful influencer on all aspects of our health including of course our mighty nervous system. The reason of course is because all movement is accepted by the nervous system as a kind of challenge. And practice rising to that challenge in relative safety like with purposeful movement or exercise builds resilience across all bio-psycho-social-spiritual connections.

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?