Mothers and women – if you polled us a group, how many of you would raise your hand and say you have been overly tired or in a poor state of mind in the past week? in the past month? in the past year?
Perhaps the whole lot of us would raise our hands in the affirmative. It is no secret that women suffer from fatigue and depressive* disorders more frequently than men.
In fact, many of the diagnoses connected to these symptoms were not even “believed” to exist until very recent history.
But as women, we know our bodies. As a health care practitioner, I have long supported many women with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, & longstanding depressive symptoms in my clinical practice. Even as late as the 1970’s, grief was not even supported as an actual state of being. So it is no surprise that women have been unable to figure out what was “wrong” with them through the years. Unable to fit into a neat medical chart, their symptoms piled up- exacerbated by their mounting responsibilities as women, mothers, and human beings.
Through the years though, medicine has come to recognize that there is a psycho-emotional body, an energetic body – and it greatly affects the physical body. Women in my practice continue to improve in health when they receive compassionate physical therapy blended with a multi-cultural approach to healing. This approach I call “elemental renewal”, the ability to see the person, not just the diagnosis. The ability to see all facets of the person and create a therapy program just for them.
The most common life experiences which can contribute to the “super fatigue” and mood shifts are, you guessed it, pregnancy, post-partum, life changes, job related stress, and the constant state of stress that is associated with child rearing and otherwise existing on this planet as a woman and/or mother.
In my practice, my first line of defense in helping women is teaching them how to breathe. So this week, I am going to dedicate the entire week to teaching you how to breathe – one day at a time, one breath at a time.
Each day this week, you will learn a different breath type so that you can have your own personal energy and mood lifting practice. In fact, sometimes I only need 2-3 minutes of concentrated breathing to turn my day around!
*If you are concerned about depression, please click here to learn more.
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