My journey to lower cortisol, elevate peace and health

My son started walking full time a few weeks ago. At the same time, we took him out of one daycare and are putting him in another that doesn’t open for another few weeks.

I found out this was an unfortunate coincidence. The combination of constant vigilance of a walking, exploring, curious toddler, and less time away from him to re-balance myself has landed my health in the crapper.

Through some detective work, I realized my cortisol levels have gone up, my adrenal fatigue has gone up and my sleep has gone down to 5-6 hours a night. So, I am on a journey to restore my health. I know many mamas need the same help, so I’m blogging about what I am trying to help others restore balance.

Luckily, Ferran is an awesome sleeper. We did sleep training right away with Ferran. He sleeps like a high schooler, ha! 10-11 hrs almost every night since 12 weeks old. It took me many months to get back to sleeping well at night, after he started sleeping though the night.

My stores of good chi (life force) are depleted and this new bout of elevated stress and sleep deprivation sent me spiraling downward fast. I’m grumpy, gaining weight like a sumo wrestler, and sadly, not able to enjoy my time with him as much because of my fatigue. He’s growing up too freakin’ quickly to let fatigue ruin enjoying my favorite lil guy.

Here’s what I’ve done to restore health in the last few weeks:

1. Last week I went to acupuncture twice. A big splurge for me. I slept through the night for a 5 glorious nights, but alas I’ve been awake at night for days on end again. I highly recommend acupuncture for everything. I swear it’s kept me alive and joyful since I was 21, as my health was already poor when I was young. Living next to chemical sprayed fields in Iowa as a kid did me no favors. My hormones dropped just before my period a few days ago and BAM sleep eludes me once again.
2. I took Advil PM the last two nights because I was so desperate for sleep. I go natural 98% of the time, but had to get sleep to try to rebalanced. Still didn’t sleep through the night the first night, but did last night after a hot bath and deep breathing.
3. My husband watches Ferran every Sunday- except last week as we went on a family vacation- fun but tiring. So, today I had the day away to enjoy some down time. The following is what I did today to restore my health and lower my cortisol.
4. I did meditation outside on our hammock for 15 min and napped for 25 min. VERY helpful!
5. Went to an oxygen bar with my friend. What?! Yep, at a mile high altitude we have a bar where you can breathe oxygen. I got relaxing aromatherapy oxygen for 20 min. Not sure what it did, other than I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I parked afterwards. I’ll see how I sleep tonight with no Advil PM.
6. Took the herb Kava twice. Once as a tincture and once at the oxygen bar in the form of a tea with chai spices and almond milk- yum.
7. Drank raw cow’s milk. We started getting it this week. I have been lactose intolerant for most of my life, so I’m excited to see how the raw milk nourishes my body!
8. Meditation and warm bath before bed. Ahhhh, feeling a lot better with just the replenishment of today.

I hope some of these inspire you towards more health, lower cortisol and greater joy in motherhood!

May you enjoy peace and health with increase every day.

Next: Day 2 of the journey