It’s much more than merely the absence of disease. Read through each of these to see how you fare.
Image by Be-Younger.com
As a midwife, you are tending to women all through the night when naturally you should be resting. This does interfere with your hormones, your energy, your emotions and much more. As a profession, midwifery demands that you give so much of yourselves every time you go to work – you are amazing!
It’s important that you really look after yourself because if your tank isn’t full, you don’t have much to give your clients, let alone your family or yourself.
Sleep
You should preferably have seven hours of uninterrupted sleep every 24 hours. If you’re on regular night shift, this means getting seven hours in a very dark room during the day. Your brain needs this as much as your body. Certain chemicals and hormones come alive at night so when you can’t have the real night – you gotta fake it!
Bowel movements
Ideally you should have one to two well-formed motions per day that have low smell and are easy to pass. If you’re experiencing loose bowel movements with high or low smell, this means you aren’t digesting your food properly. If you’re not able to go once a day but you go every other day or every three days, then you’re looking at constipation. This means your diet, lifestyle and stress levels need to be addressed.
Digestion
This should feel smooth and enjoyable. If you are experiencing bloating and distension in your gut, this could be occurring for any number of reasons:
- You’re eating on the run, whilst in a hurry or whilst emotional.
- You’re not eating the right food for your body (e.g. too much cold food when your body would work better with warm, slightly cooked food. Or you’re eating too much wheat when your body would work better with rice, barley and oats etc).
- You’re not leaving enough of a gap between your snacks and so your body doesn’t have time to properly digest before you put more food in your mouth.
- You don’t wait till you’re hungry to eat, so the digestive enzymes aren’t ready to go and therefore don’t digest the food as well as they could.
If you are experiencing constipation, diarrhea or smelly flatus (gas) on a regular basis, this can mean:
- You aren’t digesting your food properly.
- Most likely you aren’t eating the right foods for you.
- You could be eating too much cold and raw food or you could be eating too much hot and spicy food.
- You could do with some good quality probiotics and herbs to get you back on the right track.
Energy levels
These should be 8–9 out of a possible 10. If they’re not, then it’s time to look at why. Again this could be happening for any number of reasons:
- You’re working many night shifts and your body clock is all over the place. Getting regular acupuncture treatment to help correct these imbalances will help as well as paying attention to your diet and possibly taking Chinese herbs to supplement.
- You suffer from insomnia and so don’t have the right amount of sleep needed to function well.
- You’re not eating the right foods for you.
- When you aren’t on night shift you find it hard to go to sleep before 11pm and hence this doesn’t set you up well for the next day.
- You’re stressed and trying to fit too much in, so your energy is being pulled in many different directions and as a result, you’re exhausted.
Menstrual cycle
If you still have one then it should be regular – anywhere from a 26 to 34-day regular cycle is fine. When everything is in balance, this means you shouldn’t experience any pain with your cycle, nor any mood swings, breast tenderness, bloating, change in bowel motions or irritability. The blood flow should be fresh red and turn on like a tap and then taper off (not stop and start with spotting here and there) and a healthy range for bleeding is 3–5 days.
If you have any cycle issues it’s best to get them attended to. They are a reflection of what else may be going on and sorting that out will mean you will reap the health rewards.
Menopause
If your cycle is ceasing, you may experience some classic menopausal symptoms such as mood swings, hot flushes, night sweats, irregular periods, insomnia, fatigue and so on. They should be very mild though, as the Kidney Essence, Yin and Yang are in decline. If they are much stronger, this is a sign that your body isn’t balanced and Chinese herbs and acupuncture can be wonderful to help you rebalance.
Emotional Health
You may experience the whole range of emotions: happiness, joy, worry, fear, anger, frustration etc. You should feel them and move through them, not become stuck. The only emotion that would be ideal to feel continuously is happiness. Even extreme joy is harmful and can produce physiological problems such as heart attacks when felt to the max. It’s important not to suppress emotions as they only dig deeper and will come out to bite you (or a loved one) when you least expect it!
Need help addressing your health? That’s what we do at Red Tent – it’s what we live for. So come in if you’re local to Bondi (Sydney) and we’ll sort you out. All first consults for midwives are 50% off. That’s our way of saying thank you for all that you do for the women of the world.
And if you’re not local, seek out a good therapist that’s in your area – try www.ntpages.com.au
Our clinic number is 1800 RED TENT (that’s 1800 733 836)