How to sleep better and make your insomnia the best thing that ever happened to you!

Your doctor can’t cure your insomnia. He/she doesn’t know why you can’t sleep. And neither do you. I know this because neither did I!

I’m sure this blog isn’t the first thing you’ve looked into to figure out your sleep issues. If you’ve tried what seems like everything and you haven't gotten better, it's not your fault..

If you feel like you have to live with insomnia forever, I want to put those fears to rest.

You can sleep normally, you just need to get to the root cause of why you aren’t sleeping.

The medical/healthcare system wants you to think that the only solution is a drug. Or it's all in your head so try therapy. Or do a sleep study which only looks for apnea and won't show why you can’t sleep

I'm here to tell you that there's another way.

If you know that drugs aren't good for you, you're right. The medical system is backed by drug companies and it trains doctors to diagnose disease and prescribe pills or surgery. The only thing they know to do is to mask symptoms.

As a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioner (FDN-P) and Health Coach, I have a different approach. I want you to be healthy so that you can sleep normally and prevent disease.

I want you to know it is possible to sleep better. I know you want to sleep better so you can enjoy your days, your relationships, your work and your life. and I’m going to show you how to make that happen.

My story

I’ve been in health and wellness since my 20’s. I knew how to be “healthy” and took good care of myself. I exercised, ate organic, took supplements and had a relatively stress-free life as a ski bum in Jackson Hole.

I got insomnia in late pregnancy, at 39 years old. I assumed it would take care of itself, but it didn’t. Even once my son was sleeping through the night, I wasn’t. I actually became a pediatric sleep consultant to help babies and kids sleep! But I still couldn’t sleep.

I tried going to bed early but just lay in bed awake. Then I’d wake up again at 3am and lay awake in bed again for 2 hours, until my son woke up and we started our day!

I knew I could sleep and all I wanted to do was sleep normally again. Up until that point I’d slept well in my life and was highly sensitive to being sleep deprived. I had always valued sleep, even leaving my own dinner parties to get to bed by 10. I knew I needed good sleep to function.

I felt so helpless and unable to control this problem. I wanted to run my own business, spend time with my son, and find success. I wanted to have it all, and I knew I needed to be sleeping to get it. Insomnia felt out of control.

So I tried everything. I did all the research.

I Googled incessantly, read every sleep book, practiced all the right sleep hygiene, and took all the right supplements. If you are here now, I’m sure you know this story. Nothing ever worked!

I remember crying in the middle of the night because I was so exhausted, so desperate, and so frustrated.

I also knew sleeping pills weren’t for me and there had to be a better way, but I couldn’t find it.

I knew if I didn’t figure it out I’d either have to live with insomnia forever, or end up on medication for life.

So what changed?

I got certified in adult sleep health. I dove into sleep and cognitive behavioral therapy to help others sleep. And it helped a little bit, but as soon as I was stressed it all fell apart again.

Then I was introduced to functional lab testing, and finally felt like there was a new tool out there to try. I got certified through Functional Diagnostic Nutrition to learn to interpret functional lab tests and give recommendations based on results. I learned so much about holistic health to bring people’s bodies into balance. And I brought my decades of health training and newer life coaching skills to help my clients with both the physical and mentals aspects of not sleeping.

The results of my own lab tests were crazy!

I found out that I had a parasite in my gut (probably from traveling in Asia 12 years prior) which likely started so many of my problems. I had food sensitivities, major hormone imbalance, and copper and uranium toxicity. These things totally explain why I wasn’t sleeping!

So when I began to address them… I began sleeping! (At least most of the time).

Next I learned about neurotransmitters and tested myself to find I was really low in serotonin, which led me to start supplementing with 5htp and my sleep got even better!

Now I sleep great 98 percent of the time. I consider myself insomnia free. (No one sleeps great 100 percent of the time.)

So these are all the pieces of my personal insomnia puzzle. I hope you gained some insight from it, but I know from working with over 100 clients that it isn’t the exact same puzzle as yours. We know that there are as many causes of insomnia as there are insomniacs.

I am grateful for my personal journey with insomnia. Through this I’ve gotten into personal development and life coaching which helps me manage my mind. I know how to help others with their issues. And I’ve found my life’s purpose!

I wouldn’t be here today without my insomnia, as miserable as it was.

I hope your journey leads you somewhere valuable, and that one day you can see how it all fits together.