Sleepy Time Chocolate Cherry Smoothie

For many of us, our first indicator that we are experiencing hormonal change is a loss of sleep and a rise in our anxiety levels. We lie awake at 4am every night running over our to-do list and putting the world to right.

Peri-menopause is the mother of all wake up calls for women and symptoms are the language our bodies use to tell us to listen in and take action to meet our own needs…perhaps for the first time in our lives.

Loss of sleep and heightened anxiety are telling us that our stress hormone cortisol has become dominant in the body as estrogen our juicy hormone depletes.

Lack of sleep speeds the aging process, puts at risk of dementia 10 to 20 years down the line and effects our mood on a daily basis. Sleeping too few hours at night is linked to weight gain and sugar cravings.

It is time to take responsibility for your sleep at night and establish healthy sleep hygiene.

1. Sleep hygiene begins first thing in the morning when it is helpful to get exposure to daylight on rising to ‘prime’ the sleep hormone melatonin released in the brain in the evening.

2. A good nights sleep can also be destroyed by your morning coffee, so switch to a Matcha Latte or herbal tea to avoid spiking the natural cortisol morning spike that is a part of your circadian rhythm. Shift your caffeine intake to the middle of the day between 11am and 1pm.

3. Move your body during the day and sweat.

4. Set a reminder on your phone to turn off all electronics by 7pm so that you can avoid the blue spectrum light that prevents melatonin your sleep hormone from being secreted.

5. Form a night time routine that helps you to relax in the evening. Go analogue and read a book or soak in an Epsom salts bath with lavender oil, knowing that your skin is absorbing the relaxation mineral magnesium into the body.

6. Keep your bedroom cool. The best room temperature for sleep has been found to be 60 - 67C.

You can add this adrenal gland supporting smoothie to your evening routine to promote sleep.

Vitamin C rich cherries are a rich source of naturally occurring melatonin (our sleep hormone) and the B group of vitamins. With the addition of the healthy fat, coconut oil, this smoothie supports the health of tired adrenal glands. When our adrenal glands are exhausted it indicates that cortisol our stress hormone is running high in the body, we find it hard to drag ourselves out of bed in the morning but can get a second wind and feel frazzled and wired in the evening unable to sleep.

This smoothie contains protein and raw cacao which actively boosts our happy neurotransmitter serotonin. This is important as serotonin and melatonin share the same building blocks in the body and serotonin is the pre-cursor to our body producing melatonin to help us to sleep at night. You do not need a clinical trial to tell you that your happiness and sleep are related!!!

The addition of valerian root serves to relax you and promote restful sleep. A randomized placebo controlled (This is the gold standard ladies) study of post menopausal women with insomnia found a statistical significant number of women registered better sleep outcomes when taking valerian.
Taavoni S, Ekbatani N, Kashaniyan M, Haghani H. Effect of valerian on sleep quality in postmenopausal women: a randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial. Menopause. 2011 Sep;18(9):951-5. doi: 10.1097/gme.0b013e31820e9acf. PMID: 21775910.

As the evening draws in and the body registers the natural darkness, without disruption from electronics and screens, melatonin is released to start the natural sleep cycle.

Midlife is the perfect time to get empowered around your sleep hygiene to turn off your electronic devices at 7pm, make yourself this smoothie, release the stress of the day and allow yourself to relax.

Ingredients

½ cup hot water

2 tbsp raw cacao powder

2 tbsp hemp hearts

1 tbsp organic virgin coconut oil

1 cup cherries, thawed if frozen

10 drops valerian extract

1 pinch sea salt

Instructions

Put all ingredients into the blender and liquefy until smooth.

Golden Energy Balls

Look at these gorgeous balls of sunshine!

I adapted a recipe by Joy McCarthy of Joyous Health to make these energy balls and they are simply delicious.

Packed with anti-inflammatory and gut healing ingredients these little golden nuggets only took me ten minutes to make and have stashed away in my refrigerator for a post walk or workout snack.

This is easy and nutrient dense eating.

Oats, hemp seeds and apricots form the base of the ball, making this a fibre rich snacking option. Fibre is the midlife womans best friend as it supports her liver to clear excess hormones from the peri-menopausal dance out of the body.

Hemp seeds are a beautiful source of plant based protein, oats are a ‘slow burn’ carbohydrate and apricots are packed with vitamin A for health eyes and tissues and also energy boosting plant sourced iron. (plant sourced iron does not constipate)

Coconut provides a gut healing healthy fat to the mix and helps to ignite our metabolism, so that it is easy to feel satiated and maintain a healthy body weight and turmeric offers depression busting anti-inflammatory and anti-cancerous properties.

I tweaked the original recipe to add Brazil Nuts. Packed with the mineral selenium that is a co-factor for thyroid hormone conversion, Brazil nuts deeply support the health of our thyroid gland at midlife. This is important if we want to feel confident, energized and comfortable in our bodies as we navigate hormonal change.

This recipe could not be simpler as we whizz all of the ingredients into a ‘dough’ in the blender.

If you are experiencing exhaustion and overwhelm, gut health issues such as gassiness and bloating after eating or have issues with your thyroid gland such as hypothyroidism or Hashimotos disease, this is your go to snack.

The recipe tells me I should make 15 energy balls but could only manage 14, which tells me that I like my balls a bit larger!

Victoria Beckham has the nickname of Golden Balls for David, so I did have a little giggle as I made rolled the dough.

Ingredients

1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

1/4 cup hemp hearts

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup dried chopped apricots

1 tsp ground turmeric

4-5 Brazil nuts

2 tbsp lemon or lime juice

Instructions

Add all of the ingredients to a high powered blender and whizz on high until a ‘dough ‘ is formed.

You may have to keep pushing the ingredients down the side of the blender with a spatula.

Put the energy ball ‘dough’ on a chopping board and using a teaspoon measure out into 15 balls.

Roll with your hands to make 15 even balls

Refrigerate for up to a week and freeze for up to 3 months.

Beet Hummus

When we pass through peri-menopause we have two options of how we approach our health and the discombobulating symptoms that we are feeling from this natural hormonal change.

1. We can fall into a victim mindset and bypass the learning that comes for the experience by jumping straight onto the HRT train delaying our inevitable transition into peri-menopause or worse, suffering and complaining for up to 10 years because we buy into the story that this is what it means to be a woman…that we suffer from our own bodies and hormones. Not a happy place to be.

2. We can begin to take greater care of ourselves, to nourish ourselves deeply with dense nutrition and listen to our bodies and learn from our symptoms to discover exactly what our minds and bodies are needing during this time of hormonal change.

The joy of an empowered approach to peri-menopause is that the path is paved with delicious health promoting recipes that build health for the next chapter and supports our bodies as we metamorphosis into strong and vibrant women with energy, excitement and robust health striding into the next chapter.

If I had to pick one recipe that supports midlife health in a myriad of ways it would be this gorgeous scarlet bowl of Beet Hummus.

Beets are rich in betalains that support stage 2 of the detoxification process in the liver. Our livers are our greatest ally in managing fluctuating hormones as it deconjugates and binds excess hormone ready to leave the body.

The liver also needs a fibre rich diet to function effectively as the body wants to detox daily when we poop leaving us free of circulating hormones that cause our night-time sweats, daily hot flashes and weight gain.

Fibre is the midlife womans’ best friend helping her to balance hormones, protecting heart health and supporting digestive health.

Chickpeas are fibre rich and packed with the B group of vitamins for energy and plant-based protein.
Chickpeas and sesame seeds found in tahini also contain phytoestrogens that trickle feed our bodies a safe plant-based mimic for estrogen. This benign estrogen helps us to get our mojo back and feel like our juicy hormone is balanced in our bodies.

So much gorgeousness here. The colour, a burst of flavour and the dense nutrition supporting our midlife bodies.

Besides it’s gorgeous colour the secret beauty of this dish is that it only takes 10 minutes to make and sits in the fridge ready to add a nutrient dense, liver loving snack or lunch option to your day at any moment.

 Ingredients

3 medium/ 1 large beet
1½ cups (15-oz can) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
3 cloves garlic 
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp sea salt
½ lemon, juiced
¼ tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp tahini (optional)

Instructions

I have made this dish with both cooked and raw beets.
I have cooked beets in the oven with a little salt and pepper. I have thrown chunks of raw beet into the blender. I have bought a vacuum sealed pack of cooked beets from Costco. The hummus always tastes great.

Throw all of the ingredients into a blender and blend on high until the hummus is smooth and whipped.
Season to your taste.

Serve with gluten free crackers or chips.