Are you somewhere in mid or later life and getting more joint pain, muscular pain, and related fatigue? In my 40s I started to develop chronic joint and muscular pain, and so it’s been an area of personal interest for me. For clients, joint or all of body, or shifting pain are symptoms their doctor has often not been able to easily diagnose, let alone treat. So this newsletter I thought I would cover this topic and some of its causes.

Mind you, even if you do get a label from a medical professional such as fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthiritis, they may not be able to do a lot to help after that. The incidence of chronic pain diseases is increasing, but so far, not much gain in effective treatments.

Most of these conditions if not all, involve inflammation.

There are some evidence-based and practical and even simple ways to nurture your immune system against viral based illnesses. Please note this does not mean it will prevent them, or provide any guarantee, it simply strengthens our immunity so that we have a stronger resilience- we increase our chances of handling them better.

However, viruses that our body has not had contact with before, such as sars-cov-2, can be quite challenging for many people, as we have seen. Especially for those people with underlying health conditions, the extra support may just make a difference…..

Many people are currently getting vaccinated against covid and I want to write a post to help them support themselves. I know some are feeling anxious leading up to their appointment.

Side effects are common……

Have you heard of the term ‘oestrogen dominance’ but are not quite sure what it is referring to?

Oestrogen dominance is related to long term stress, which causes “sympathetic dominance”.This refers to our “fight or flight” system being chronically activated. This leads to fatigue, often called “adrenal fatigue” or “chronic fatigue”….

I find most of the women I work with need to hear and appreciate hearing me say things like:

Looking after kids is already a full time job- then you do paid work as well? It’s a lot you are managing, no wonder you are tired/exhausted etc

Women’s work doesn’t tend to be recognised or acknowledged, so we feel we have to do more and more...but look at everything you are doing.....

As women, mothers and/or wives, we tend to look after all the details of the family life and schedule, often including our husband/partner’s details. There is so much detail to keep track of in today’s world!

Studies have shown that one of the most important factors in health and longevity, is proper social nutrition. We are social creatures….

Many people who come to me want to lose weight, but also have long term disordered eating patterns through calorie restriction, binge eating, trying different extreme diets that demonise things like carbs, sugar, fat or dairy. One of the most important things in my approach is to make sure you are well nourished, because….

Fatigue is a natural normal part of life that normally tells us its time to rest, often at the end of the day, or after a stressful event. A rest, good night’s sleep or holiday, is generally enough to restore the body and mind. However many people experience a chronic fatigue that is debilitating and gets in the way of living the full life they would like to live. There can be many underlying reasons for this type of fatigue.

Here are a few:…..

I have been reading a fascinating book that presents a very fresh perspective on a very old topic…the importance of breathing well, to our health. We have all heard it before, but he presents very compelling evidence, in a riveting way, that has certainly had an impact on my awareness of the way I breathe.

James Nestor, the author of Breath, The New Science of a Lost Art, actually did experiments on himself….

Have you heard of the term ‘oestrogen dominance’ but are not quite sure what it is referring to?

Oestrogen dominance is related to long term stress……

Let’s talk breakfast…some women love it, many skip it. Many women don’t feel like breakfast…or they learn to skip it to reduce overall calories or have a shorter eating window, such as with intermittent fasting.

No problem skipping breakfast…unless you are a woman with any of these issues:……..

How many of us are looking at screens right up until bedtime? I know I often do although I do feel better when I am doing other things- it can be a way to wind down and relax to some extent. However, it can negatively affect sleep, as even electric lights at nighttime can and does impact the length and quality of our sleep.

If we are stressed during the day, we are far less likely to have deep, fulfilling, sufficient sleep at nighttime. A stressed mind leads to a stressed body, and a stressed body doesn’t easily rest. It is stuck ‘on’ in a survival mode…it senses there is danger and it needs to stay alert…..

We tend to live inside a lot, and this can disconnect us from having healthy circadian rhythms, which can lead to sleep issues, and/or waking up issues. I consider light to be an essential nutrient, something that goes far beyond the Vitamin D you can get in a bottle.

One of the reasons we can wake up during the night or early morning in particular, and struggle to get back to sleep, is because of a blood sugar drop i.e. we actually get hungry. When our blood sugar drops, the body will release adrenaline which helps mobilise stored glucose from the liver, called glycogen.

Of course, that adrenaline is not very helpful to our sleep. We then feel "wired but tired".

The currently popular low carb and intermittent fasting movements can both contribute to this issue…..