Bounced (energy) checks
How long does it take to heal your hormones and exhaustion? So glad you asked.
I was chatting with a patient the other day about her bank account.
But not like, her actual bank account. (pro-tip, do not ask me for financial advice. I'm not your girl)
Her energy and vitality bank account.
Stick with me. I’m going somewhere here.
I heard this analogy once from an acupuncturist colleague, and it has stuck with me ever since.
Think of your energy balance as your bank accounts.
Your day to day energy transactions are your checking account.
Your vitality is your savings account.
Vitality is what I would call truly thriving without any nagging symptoms that zap your zest for life. When you feel reliably good most days, sustained energy, balanced moods etc. All the ingredients that put together really feel like thriving and living a joyful, energetic and full life.
Sign me TF up for that, amiright?
That vitality is the end goal that essentially everyone comes to see me for. The moms I work with want less brain fog, gut drama, motherhood depletion, exhaustion, hormone symptoms and more of that vital energy.
But just like IRL, unless you're minding your checking account (daily energy), your savings account (vitality) can't grow.
Let’s dig in.
Checking account energy.
You deposit energy each day into your checking account by:
eating enough nourishing food
stabilizing blood sugar
replenishing nutrient deficiencies
taking breaks throughout the day
getting at least 7.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep
These are the bare necessities (sing it!) that you need in order to have a baseline amount of health. These are abso-f*cking-lutely non negotiable. But so many moms I work with are not getting ANY of these, so we start here. This is the core of my Mother Recover program, teaching you exactly how to do this.
Notice how none of the items on the list are about calorie balance? I know that’s what a lot of people think of when we talk about “energy balance.” That plays a small part, but is in no way the main role here.
In addition to the foundational list above, some bonus checking account deposits are things that probably won’t show up daily, but can give your account a big boost:
therapy sessions
date nights with a sitter (for you and a partner, you solo, you with friends…)
other events that give you a break, feed your soul, make you laugh, etc.
So we need to get a steady income stream into that checking account. Diversify that portfolio, mama! (is that a thing people with money say? Or did I hear that in a movie?)
Checking account energy withdrawals
Now that we understand the checking account deposits that are 100% necessary, let’s talk about withdrawals.
Living and breathing is expensive. Literally and figuratively.
You withdraw from your energy checking account by:
Your body’s energy use throughout the day for just breathing, your organs working, brain thinking, heart pumping
Taking care of others (cough cough THESE NEEDY KIDS cough cough)
Worrying, stressing, ruminating etc
Exercise - the more intense, the bigger the withdrawal.
Any kind of sickness, healing or recovery (including postpartum)
Breastfeeding
And more is taken out if you're skipping meals, under-eating, skimping on sleep, and running go go go all day long without breaks.
Now, most of these are just part of being human. It’s unavoidable to be making these withdrawals, because they are part of life. The important part is getting enough deposits to keep up with the withdrawals. And to be mindful that certain times and seasons require more deposits to maintain the right balance.
Unfortunately, most of us are over-drafting our checking accounts and bouncing checks left and right.
How do you know if you’re in overdraft?
Basically you feel like garbage. You pay the price of these energy deficits with feeling like crap - hormone issues, no energy, no stress tolerance, PMS etc.
So our first step in feeling better day to day is keeping your energy checking account balanced. At a minimum we want to stop bouncing checks, and have the input matching the output. This usually leads to some fairly fast symptom improvements.
Yay! Now we’re out of survival mode. Check.
But over time, our goal isn't just to keep that checking account neutral. We want to tip the balance toward MORE energy deposits, so we can save some spillover into our savings account.
Remember, the savings account is our Vitality energy.
That's where the thriving kicks in, true healing happens, and we have more bandwidth for hiccups along our journey. So if we have a bad month of limited self care, we have some spillover energy available from our vitality account.
Let’s think of it another way -
Before you had kids, you probably could have had a bad night of sleep and bounced back the next day. Or gone a week eating like crap and not had crazy PMS that month as a side effect.
That's because your vitality savings account was full and healthy. You had extras when you overdrew your checking account.
Pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and the universal motherhood experience of putting yourself last has drained our savings accounts. Literally and figuratively.
Without a robust savings account, little hiccups like a bad night of sleep can feel like they're taking you back to square one. But just know that in time, with more deposits that overflow into your vitality savings you will start to have more room for error and not get hit so hard from a rough week.
So when you start your journey to hormone health and vitality, know that there are two phases. The checking account phase, where you can have some fast improvements in energy, mood, and hormone symptoms. And the savings account phase where we keep making those deposits, and our body's resilience and vitality improves over time.
Healing is a spiral and not a straight line.
Let's all be vitality billionaires mkay?
