It’s Tuesday morning and the alarm clock goes for a second time, only to be hit on its snooze button one more time (or maybe two). Rose dreads this time of day, she knows she has to get up at 6:50 at the very latest to get the kids ready for school and leave on time for work. Yet, the number of days it ends up being 7:00, which leads to starting the day in stressful hurry, outnumber the days she manages to get up as planned. Why, oh why does the best sleep of the night always seem to come 30 minutes before the alarm goes off?
Rose drags herself out of bed. Her head feeling like it’s stuffed with cotton wool, she gets dressed as quickly as possible in this trance like state. She needs a cup of coffee urgently so that she can have at least a half decent start to the day. At the same time she manages to shout orders at the kids to get dressed and sit down for breakfast (she got smart enough to make sure that clothes are out and ready the night before). Her husband has already left the house at this time. It’s too late to fry an egg for the kids, so cereal it is.
After her cup of coffee, Rose goes back to the bathroom to brush her teeth, do her hair and make-up to be presentable at work. With no time for breakfast, she grabs a banana on the way out, takes the kids to school and drives to the office. The banana conveniently stays in the car and by the time Rose reaches the office, she craves sugar. She chooses a waffle from her desk drawer, where she keeps a stock of emergency food, and needs another cup of coffee. With a tight deadline coming up, there is very little time for lunch, so she gets a sandwich that she can eat at her desk. After lunch she feels like she needs a nap but of course that’s impossible so a chocolate bar and another cup of coffee have to do the trick. Concentrating on her work is a real challenge but at least the fogginess seems to somewhat clear up towards the afternoon.
On her way home she’s exhausted and very happy that she has enough left-over food in the fridge from yesterday so that she won’t have to cook. By the time evening comes she feels ok-ish, this is the best time of day for her. She seems more awake than any other time of the day and spends the evening checking her email and Facebook. When her husband comes home, they watch a movie. Rose wraps herself in a blanket to keep her feet warm (which doesn’t really help). When it’s time to go to bed, she finds it difficult to go to sleep because there are so many things going through her head. Also, she has no socks on and with cold feet, she cannot sleep. The later it gets the more she dreads the grogginess she’ll wake up with again in the morning.
One day, Rose decided, enough is enough. She wanted the old, energetic self back. She had no idea how, so she got help. Her symptoms were a pretty clear sign for some important hormones being out of whack. This imbalance didn’t only cause her fatigue but also her cravings for sweets. Rose was tired, so lots of Information on what to change, would have just disappeared like a vessel in the Bermuda Triangle.
So what we did was a lot more practical. We sat down to do meal planning together and start a new shopping list routine. I took her shopping (in her regular super market) and showed her what to look for and what to avoid. I re-arranged her kitchen for more efficiency, recommended tools that make cooking more fun and then we cooked together and had a blast. Equally important, we looked at why she got into this spiral of fatigue and brain-fog to begin with. Rose had experienced a two losses in her life in the past three years, people that were near and dear to her heart and she’s found it difficult to cope with it. Taking her through some simple stress management tools that also helped her letting things go were a big piece to the puzzle of recovery.
With getting her cravings under control and better quality night sleep, Rose now doesn’t dread the sound of her alarm clock anymore. She’s not quite given up on her snoozing habit, however, she does wake up feeling refreshed and instead of needing a cup of coffee first thing in the morning, she now has time for a healthy breakfast shake that sets her off to a good start. Rose is loving the change and the fact that she’s started losing some weight too!
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