After a long day complete with energy crashes and “angry” moments, you have dinner. Suddenly, 6PM, 7PM roll around and you’ve got energy to burn. By the time it’s 10PM, you definitely can’t fall asleep- your mind is on overdrive! You’re thinking, you’re worrying, you’re planning. 

And why should you go to bed earlier? This is the only time you have to yourself, after all. 

When you do finally fall asleep, it’s choppy. Maybe you toss and turn, or get up a bunch of times to pee, drink, grab something to eat or do more worrying. 

By the time your alarm goes off in the morning, you can’t get out of bed. So you hit snooze. Again. And again. And again. Then you can’t wait any longer, so you burst out of bed to throw on some clothes and grab a coffee before heading out the door. 

This sequence repeats itself in your life day after day, and it’s enough to drive any woman crazy! For reals. 

Fatigue is no joke. So let’s get serious(ish). 

5 Crucial Strategies to Sleep Easy + Fight Fatigue

#1 Balance Blood Sugar

Blood sugar is always number one in my book. There’s even a running joke among a wellness business mastermind group I’m apart of that if everyone balanced their blood sugar, we could cure the world’s problems! While that might be an exaggeration, balanced blood sugar is extremely essential for being wired at night and tired in the morning. 

You see, insulin, our blood sugar regulating hormone, can meds with your stress response (see #2 below). When we eat like sit, we sit on our butts all day and we internalize stress (perhaps without even realizing it), insulin’s “key” to our cells to let sugar in, doesn’t happen. It’s like our cells have changed the locks. So we get loads of sugar and insulin in our blood. 

This turns insulin into a fat storage hormone, putting weight on our bodies and making us feel sluggish. Often with this type of insulin resistance, our blood sugar will crash during the night (making you wake up) and in between meals (like those 10AM and 3PM energy crashes). This means that by the time we get to dinner, usually our biggest and most satisfying meal of the day, our energy finally goes up. 

If our meals contain a lot of refined carbs, sugar and not enough fat or proteins, those spikes and crashes effect everything in our lives, leaving you wired at night and tired in the morning(/all day). 

So, balancing blood sugar is the first place to start when aiming for better sleep, less fatigue and more YOU. 

#2 Support Your Adrenals

What the @#%& are adrenals you ask? Well, they’re two small organs in your body that sit on top of each kidney. They’re small, about the size of a walnut, but are incredibly important and often forgotten- especially in the traditional medical world. Adrenals not only regulate your entire stress response (aka Fight or Flight and Rest or Digest), they also produce sex hormones in small amounts, like progesterone. 

Our adrenal glands also have a hand in our sleep-wake cycle, and often times over prolonged physical, mental or emotional stress (aka modern life), they get fatigued, and all turned around.

Normally, cortisol, one of the main adrenal-produced stress hormones, is highest in the morning and lowest right before bed. Makes sense- it helps us get up and moving and then helps us fall asleep easily at night. 

When we have that stress, and blood sugar stuff like we talked about above is a big part of this, the adrenal rhythm gets messed with. What ends up happening is the reverse of ideal- cortisol is too low in the morning, and spikes in the evening, preventing us from having a good night’s sleep and feeling anything but fatigued during the day.

#3 Heal Your Gut

Next up we have to talk about our gut. There’s a million and one reasons why gut problems will influence that feeling of being wired at night but being unable to get going in the morning and fighting fatigue all day. 

Our gut is our body’s first line of defence against pretty much everything. Basically your gut is one long tube from your mouth to your butt. It has an important yet delicate lining that keeps all the bad stuff away. In many ways modern life slowly eats away at this lining, and bad stuff like pathogens (aka viruses and bacteria) plus undigested food particles get into the blood stream. 

Let’s say for example you’ve eaten a lot of dairy today. And yet again your wired at night and the next day dragging yourself out of bed. It could be the dairy. If undigested dairy particles are getting into your blood stream due to “leaky gut” or “intestinal permeability”, your immune system will overreact. In some people, this is a legit dairy allergy. In others, it’s a sensitivity or intolerance. 

This immune system overreaction puts stress on your body. And what happens when our body is stressed? We get more cortisol. And more insulin resistance. And more shitty sleep and daydreams of napping at our desk.  

#4 Evening Routine

In keeping with the theme of regulating our stress response, a crucial strategy to fight fatigue and sleep easy is an evening routine. Sounds obvious, right? But do you have one? And no, Netflix and chillin’ doesn’t count, sorry to burst your bubble. 

Removing ourselves from stresses (like staring at blue-lit screens all the time) is key for the 1-2 hours before bedtime. Turn off ALL screens (yes, that darned phone too), read a good book, take a bath, lotion that delicious skin, do a few stretches and just b-r-e-a-t-h-e for awhile. Or any combination of things that relax you. 

Stick with it every single night, no matter what. Make it a non-negotiable. Like breathing, eating and pooping, your evening routine must get done to survive. Whether it’s for 5 minutes or a few hours doesn’t matter. As long as you do it, your body will thank you.

#5 Eat Your Veggies

Lastly, we didn’t talk too much in detail about proper diet for this wired and tired thing. I do want to give you a little hint, and that’s to eat your veggies. One of my clients seriously unlevelled her veggie game recently and couldn’t believe how much less fatigue she had!

My recommendation is always to go for green and orange veggies first. Aim for at least 4 cups daily. And get some starchier ones, like orange sweet potatoes, in with dinner for better sleep and to relax your adrenals and nervous system. 

You wake up exhausted from a poor night’s sleep. You go to work, push through the day with loads of coffee and sugary vending machine trips, and barely keep it together without falling asleep at your desk. Once home, you call up your favourite delivery place or throw a frozen processed meal into the oven or microwave.
 
After dinner, you actually start to feel normal- like you can get shit done and then some, it’s your best time of the day! As evening turns to night, you know you should get to sleep, but you’re feeling wired. Your brain just won’t shut off even though your body is ready for a winter’s worth of hibernation. 

This is a really familiar story among the women I work with in my 21-Day Happy Hormones Diet program. It’s that ‘wired and tired’ state that over time really wreaks havoc with how we feel and how our bodies and hormones function. 

Why Am I Tired And Wired?

The answer lies in the function of two small and little-known endocrine glands in the body, the adrenals! You have two adrenal glands, who sit atop the kidneys like little hats. They’re so important, they regulate your whole stress response! Additionally, the adrenal glands may also produce small amounts of sex hormones like estrogen, testosterone and DHEA. A few of the various functions include:

• Releasing cortisol in response to short and long-term stress
• Releasing adrenaline and noradrenaline in response to short-term stress (that “Fight or Flight” response)
• Control blood pressure
• Creation of sex hormones, which increases after menopause

When you’re chronically stressed out, especially over many years, your adrenal glands simply can’t keep up with the demand for stress hormones, and they crash, potentially contributing to Adrenal Fatigue.

Adrenal Fatigue, or insufficiency, or dysfunction is exactly that- your adrenal glands may be fatigued and causing issues in the body. Adrenal Fatigue is characterized by experiencing many of a long list of symptoms, which you can see below. Adrenal Fatigue doesn’t happen over night- it’s something that comes about after years of health issues and stress.

Symptoms of Adrenal Fatigue include:

• Feeling tired and wired in the evenings, can’t get to or stay asleep and then are bone tired all day long even after drinking coffee
• Irrational anger, irritability, anxiety or are quick to cry
• Constant fatigue
• Weight gain, especially in the belly area
• Blood sugar control issues
• Low blood pressure
• Low blood sugar
• Inability to handle stress
• Low resilience
• Cravings, especially for salty foods
• Reliance on stimulants like coffee and sugar to get through the day
• Weak immune system- chronic colds, flus and other infections
• Mild depression
• Insomnia
• Lack of motivation or “get up and go:
• Short fuse
• Brain fog or poor memory
• Inability to concentrate
• Low libido
• Severe PMS

5 Foods to Improve Your Energy and Get a Good Night’s Sleep

#1 Bone Broth 

A true superfood, bone broth contains loads of nutrients beneficial for supporting the adrenal glands, restoring energy and improving sleep. For example, bone broth contains loads of minerals like calcium and phosphorous which not only keep our bones strong but also help to calm the nervous system and feed the adrenals. 

Bone broth also contains both collagen and gelatin. You may have seen collagen and gelatin supplement powders available at health food stores. They are the latest craze, and for good reason. Collagen supports a healthy immune system and soothes the lining of the digestive tract. Gelatin is where most of the minerals live, soothes gut lining and can calm symptoms of inflammation and immune over-response. All of this together helps to reduce your body’s internal stresses, like inflammation from foods for example. 

#2 Root Vegetables 

An amazing group of veggies, the roots literally help us feel rooted. This is partly due to the energetics of root vegetables- they grow in the ground and that grounding energy transfers into us when we consume them. The benefits of root vegetables are often best obtained when they’re cooked, as it becomes easier for us to absorb their nutrients.

Root vegetables such as sweet potato, carrots, beets, winter squash, parsnips, turnips and others are indispensable when you want to heal adrenal fatigue, boost your energy and sleep well. They contain complex carbohydrates that are both extremely comforting when we eat them, and slow the spike of blood sugar when we eat, preventing crashes later on. These complex carbs also help our bodies to produce feel good chemicals like serotonin, boosting mood- hence the comforting effect of these foods!

Root veg are also high in many minerals, and the adrenal glands need high amounts of minerals to function well, especially when you’re chronically stressed out. An example of a mineral they contain in abundance is Magnesium. Although they may not have as much as other foods like nuts, seeds and beans, root vegetables are often much easier to digest than the other sources, making it a bit easier to get this calming and rejuvenating mineral into our bodies. 

When healing extremely tired adrenal glands, it may be beneficial to use 1/4 to 1/2 cup cooked root veggies with each meal, including breakfast. Having some of these veggies with dinner or before bed can help to reduce sleep disturbances like waking during the night. 

#3 Sea veggies

Sea vegetables are not widely used in North America, to our detriment. Sea vegetables are extremely concentrated in nutrients, making them an amazing addition for improving energy, assisting sleep and restoring adrenal function. There are many types of seaweeds, including nori, kelp, dulse, arame, wakame and more. 

Sea vegetables are high in many minerals, including iron. If iron stores are low, fatigue often sets in, and immune function suffers, putting additional strain on the adrenal glands. Sea veggies are also high in the mineral iodine, something lacking in Western diets as we get away from eating sea foods of all types. Iodine in small amounts is necessary for proper thyroid function, and a sluggish or under-active thyroid will negatively impact the adrenals and your energy levels. 

Lastly sea vegetables contain small amounts of tryptophan, an amino acid used to make the happy chemical serotonin. This may mean that sea veggies are a great addition to the diet to boost mood. 

Using sea vegetables is easier than you think. You can buy shakers of kelp or dulse in health food stores or online, and shake it onto your food in place of salt. You can use nori sheets to make wraps for lunch instead of flour-based products, and you can sprinkle strings of sea veggies like wakame and arame into soups and salads. 

#4 Bell Peppers 

Sweet bell peppers are a delicious addition to most any meal. They are also one of the highest sources of vitamin C out there, out-ranked only by papaya. The difference is, bell peppers contain a lot less sugar than papaya, making them a great choice to increase your vitamin C consumption without spiking blood sugar.

The high levels of vitamin C (1 cup contains 157% of your recommended daily intake) in bell peppers are food for your adrenal glands. Specifically, the highest amounts of vitamin C in the body are stored in your adrenal glands. Vitamin C is used to produce all adrenal hormones, especially in the production of cortisol, a hormone released in response to both short and long-term stress. When you’re chronically stressed, your body is going to use up vitamin C very quickly. 

When you run low on vitamin C, your adrenal glands go into a panic mode of sorts, releasing even more cortisol, meaning you need even more vitamin C that you don’t have. 

Getting bell peppers and other high vitamin C foods like broccoli, Brussel sprouts, strawberries and pineapple on a regular basis can healthfully support your adrenal glands to increase energy and allow for a good night’s rest. 

#5 Wild-Caught Salmon

Last on the list, but no less important than the other foods, wild-caught salmon has numerous health benefits for the adrenal glands.

Firstly, wild-caught salmon is high in omega-3 fatty acids, an anti-inflammatory type of fat most of us aren’t getting enough of. Farmed salmon doesn’t have the same levels of omega-3s, so I recommend choosing wild-caught whenever possible. 

Omega-3s help to balance blood sugar, and imbalanced blood sugar and insulin levels put more stress on the body and adrenal glands. Omega-3s are also extremely calming to the nervous system, reducing stress and strain on the adrenals. They may also help to boost mood, increase your energy and calm you enough for a good night’s sleep with regular use. 

This is a fabulous recipe using salmon to help you get started. 

Beyond the omega-3s, wild-caught salmon is a high protein source. Protein of course is needed to create muscles, but it’s also used in the creation of hormones, like the stress hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline. Consuming enough protein (about 20g-30g per meal and 5g-10g per snack) is an excellent way to support energy production, lean muscle mass, hormone production and adrenal function. 

Think about the last time you felt truly relaxed- nowhere to go, no one to be, tension-free and happy. 

Where were you? Who were you with? What smells, tastes, sights and sounds do you remember?

Think about it in detail for a minute right now. 

Are you feeling more relaxed? Great! The rest of this article is aimed at helping you to achieve the sense of calm you felt in the memory above more often in your life. 

One of the best ways to cultivate calm within our selves and our busy lives is yoga. I have been yoga-in for about 10 years now. By no means am I an expert, or even able to do crazy headstands and arm balances, but yoga has saved me. And it’s not just anecdotal stories that should convince you (although they did with me!), there’s some serious science to back up the yoga craze. 

What You Feel Like When You’re Stressed Out

Awareness is a huge step towards making positive changes in your life. If you can’t recognize patterns of distress your body is sending you like giant red flashing lights, you can’t help yourself.

So how can we cultivate this awareness? By keeping track of patterns. 

Specifically when you’re stressed, you can experience any number of symptoms, including the following list. See how many you’re checking off as you read through- likely the more of these symptoms you experience, the more stressed you are and the harder it is for your body to cope without support.

• Fatigue
• Quick to anger
• Irritable
• Brain fog
• Inability to focus
• Cold hands and feet
• Body aches and pains including shoulder, neck, jaw, lower back and hips
• Chest pain
• Heart racing or irregularity
• Panic attacks
• Shallow breathing
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Fist or jaw clenching
• Poor digestion- sluggish or loose bowels, burping, bloating 
• Fits of rage
• Insomnia
• Menstrual cycle irregularities 
• And much more!

What’s Happening in Your Body During Stress

So now that you have a slight idea of how you feel when you’re really calm, and what symptoms might be signalling you’re feeling major stress, let’s talk what’s causing these reactions in your body and how we can balance them naturally (aka with the Stress-melting yoga pose).

Your adrenal glands are very important for hormonal health, including both regulating your body’s stress response and creating sex hormones in small amounts. When you’re feeling stressed or are in a stressful situation, it’s your adrenals that kick in to help you get through it.

The main stress hormone the adrenals produce is called cortisol, and you may have heard of this hormone before. Cortisol is released both in acute and long-term stress. This means that every time you get pissed off at a dumb driver on the road, or internalize family drama that’s been going on for years, you’re telling your body you’re in a stressful and life or death situation (even if your life isn’t in danger). This is called the fight or flight response

Many hundreds of thousands of years ago, we were hunters and gatherers- living off the land and having to kill our own prey. The threat of bodily harm or death due to other large predatory animals and the elements was huge. Because of this, our bodies adapted to be able to save our asses in this kind of situation by releasing certain chemicals like the stress hormone cortisol, as well as adrenaline.

Here’s an example:

You’re out picking berries along the savannah, and you hear the cracking of dry brush in the distance, like it’s being stepped on. Your body will go on high alert, waiting for more information before deciding whether to fight or flee. If suddenly a lion comes charging at you through the brush, without you consciously making the decision, you’ll be running away in a split second flat. This is because the sudden increase in stress hormones has gotten your body ready to move quickly and easily to save your life. Your heart rate increases, pupils dilate and blood flow goes to the extremities.

All non life-saving body functions are put to the back burner- things like digestion and reproduction. Digestive juices dry up, and production and use of hormones like estrogen falls or goes crazy.

While this situation is awesome short term when your life is in danger, your body can’t tell the difference between that lion chasing you and your irritation over piles of dirty laundry or a crappy boss. So, every time you feel on high alert, stressed, tight, snappy- your body is in this fight or flight mode. Generally, this is happening to us several times per day, as we have little stress episodes like this many times throughout the day.

If this happens over a period of months or years, your adrenals begin to give up or go crazy and you can experience something called adrenal insufficiency or adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue is a little known root cause or contributor to sex hormone imbalances, which is why I’m highlighting it here.

Why You Need to Manage Stress Better

As I’m sure you can gather, managing stress is mucho important for your overall well being and the health of your hormones. 

When you’re better able to manage your stress in a healthy way, all those shitty symptoms we talked about above can be replaced with:

• Be able to predict when your regulated periods will come and know there won’t be pain keeping you on the couch with The Notebook, Midol and a heating pad.
• Have stable energy throughout the day and you won’t have to worry about 24/7 grumpiness because you’re over-extended and haven’t eaten for hours.
• Feel slim, feminine, strong and sexy in your body while coming to a happy and sustainable weight.
• Feel confident and empowered in your healing journey
• Experience clothes that fit year round- no need to undo buttons, live in yoga pants or go up a size every season
• Be present and actually participate in your life instead of watching it pass you by

One Life Changing Yoga Pose To Melt Stress & Balance Hormones

Pin it for later >> https://goo.gl/biJD21

Okay! Now we get to the fun bit, the bit you can actually put into practice into your life. Before I get into what the pose is and why it’s so amazing for your health and hormones, I urge you to remember that small changes can have massive impact on how we think and feel- even if it seems too easy. With consistent practice and attention, positive results will follow (aka doing it once ain’t gonna cut it!).

The yoga pose I’m excited to share with you is called Legs Up The Wall or Viparita Karani is so helpful in melting Stress and balancing hormones because it reverse the effects of gravity on the body, helps direct nourishing blood flow to your internal organs (especially reproductive and digestive organs, and your adrenal glands) and helps the body move from “fight or flight” mode to “rest and digest” mode.

A few of the many benefits that come from this include:

• Insomnia relief when used regularly before bed
• Softens symptoms of PMS and bothersome menopause
• Calms a busy mind
• Relieves stresses and anxiety
• Relieves swollen and tired legs and feet
• Improves digestion

How To Do Legs Up the Wall

If you’ve looked at the image, you an see it’s a fairly simple pose. The things to pay attentoin Ito are making sure when you’re in the pose you cal relax fully. Your neck and spine should be straight, and you can put a bolster or block underneath your sacrum if you wish to go a little deeper. If you feel you need extra grounding, a block put on the bottoms of your feet when they’re up in the air can help. 

If all else fails, check out YouTube for more detailed instruction! Here’s to melting Stress and balancing hormones. 

What Happens in Your Body When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep

Weight

Sex Hormones and Menstrual Cycle

Everything Else in Your Body

This is Why You Can’t Sleep

Your Brain Won’t Turn Off

You’re Incredibly Stressed

You Don’t Take Time for YOU

What IS Healthy Sleep?

#1 Laptop Curfew

#2 Bedtime Rituals

• Laptop curfew (see instructions above)
• Brain dumping (see info below)
• Restorative, Gentle or Yin yoga
• Deep breathing or meditation
• An epsom salt bath (see more about using it’s main component Magnesium below)
• Reading a fluff novel- no true crime or other stimulating subjects
• Applying a lotion with calming scents like lavender, chamomile or sage
• Diffusing essential oils into the bedroom like lavender, chamomile, sage, vetiver, ylang ylang, sandalwood, cedarwood, bergamot or marjoram
• Having a cup of herbal tea- look in stores for a sleepytime blend or try lavender, chamomile, rose, passionflower, skullcap, or lemon balm
• Laying out your clothes for the next day and pre-packing your lunch

#3 Brain Dump

#4 Magnesium

#5 Sleep Herbs

• valerian
• skullcap
• passionflower (this can be combined with the above two herbs for a potent combination in tincture form)
• lavender
• chamomile
• lemon balm
• peppermint
• rose
• St. John’s wort (note: don’t take if you’re on antidepressants)

#6 Pre-Bed Protein Snack

• Small handful of nuts
• One tbsp of nut butter (like almond or cashew) on a bit of fruit (like half an apple or pear)
• A small cup of chicken soup, or another soup with protein in it
• Chia pudding topped with some hemp seeds
• Two tbsp of grass-fed collagen protein (like from Great Lakes or Vital Proteins) mixed into your nightly herbal tea
• A little bit of leftover cooked chicken or turkey with some salt