Healing Postpartum Depletion: 6 Tools to Help You Feel Better Fast
“I feel depleted after pregnancy and breastfeeding for 3 years- what can I do to feel better ASAP?”
I get questions like this one very often and believe it or not, was in a similar position myself at one point so I get it. You’re physically and mentally exhausted, overwhelmed, frustrated, and tired of being tired. You may feel burnt out, anxious, irritable. You may be struggling with brain fog, hair loss, irregular periods, and insomnia (even when your baby is sleeping well at night).
I’m here to tell you that your desire to feel better is 100% valid. You deserve to feel amazing- and you can (and will) get there.
Now I won’t sugarcoat it- fully healing is a process that takes time. Depletion doesn’t arise overnight. It often takes time to manifest or simply be recognized. For some, it does occur primarily as a result of pregnancy and the stressors faced postpartum like sleep deprivation, going back to work, and breastfeeding.
Yet for so many women, depletion actually begins way before pregnancy- years of dieting and under-eating, chronic stress, overexercise, overwork- all of these take a toll on our bodies, deplete our nutrients, and decrease our resilience. The stress of pregnancy and postpartum can just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Giving yourself at least a year of healing is the best way to truly honor your body’s needs and encourage its innate healing capacity without overloading your system.
However, it is not only possible but also ideal to notice positive improvements in your symptoms in a short amount of time! This builds momentum on your healing journey and also provides positive feedback that things are moving in the right direction!
So before we get into the tools I most often recommend starting with, take time to access what your current capacity is for making changes. If you’re really depleted, you may only have the energy to address one simple thing to begin and that’s perfectly okay. Start with the foundations and pick the lowest hanging fruit (like eating enough and optimizing sleep).
Then over time, you can add more in and shift your course as your body adjusts and your capacity expands. Keep checking in with yourself!
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you.
Now without further ado, here are 6 powerful tools you can utilize postpartum to help yourself feel better fast and jumpstart your healing:
1) Start drinking adrenal cocktails.
HTMA results showing very low levels of sodium, potassium, and copper
Adrenal cocktails- or more accurately, “mocktails”- are a super simple and delicious drink that help provide extra adrenal nourishment and especially replenish levels of sodium and potassium.
Sodium and potassium are two super important minerals. For one, they’re macro minerals- meaning minerals we need in larger amounts. They are also electrolytes, a class of minerals that have an electric charge and help support fluid balance in the body. And every cell in our bodies needs sodium and potassium- especially in a specific balance!
Sodium and potassium are crucial for energy production, blood pressure regulation, digestion, adrenal health and therefore sugar and stress handling, and overall mineral balance in the body.
Our adrenals and kidneys regulate our levels of these two minerals. When our adrenals become depleted due to chronic stress, sodium and potassium levels decrease.
So if you’re experiencing postpartum depletion and particularly if you’ve been under stress for a while, chances are your sodium and potassium levels need attention.
The other key component of adrenal cocktails is vitamin C- and not the supplemental form ascorbic acid, but whole-food vitamin C which is a complex that contains copper. Vitamin C and copper are especially important for adrenal function.
Adrenal cocktails can be made in many different ways, but the most common recipe is 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/2-3/4 cup coconut water, and 1/4 tsp. unrefined sea salt. if you are very depleted and don’t tolerate fruit juices well, you can utilize lower-sugar options like lemon or lime juice and/or pure inner leaf aloe vera juice (like the Lakewood brand), or try Jigsaw’s powdered mix.
You can start with 1 a day and adjust according to your body- experiment to find the variation that feels good for you.
If you want to learn more about adrenal cocktails and the different ingredient variations, plus get a bunch of delicious recipes, check out The Complete Guide to The Adrenal Cocktail ebook.
2) Incorporate grass-fed beef liver into your diet.
Beef liver is truly nature’s multivitamin- a “nutritional powerhouse” food and a traditional one consumed by our ancestors regularly, yet mostly missing from modern diets.
It contains a ton of important nutrients in easily absorbable forms- including minerals like iron and copper and fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin A (in retinol form). It’s common for these nutrients in particular to need support postpartum- many moms are told they are anemic (some lose quite a bit of blood) and we give a ton of copper and retinol to our babies in the third trimester, which are important cofactors for keeping iron levels healthy.
You can eat just a few ounces each week (3 oz. is enough for most) by cooking it up with bacon and onions, adding it into chili or stew, or mixing it in with ground beef to make burgers, meatballs, or meatloaf. Some choose to make their own frozen liver bites to supplement with. Check out local farms and farmers markets or consider ordering online from a reputable source like White Oak Pastures or U.S. Wellness Meats.
If that doesn’t work for you, you can take a high-quality supplement such as Perfect Supplements. They make capsules as well as a powdered form you can add into smoothies or use in cooking or even baking!
Overall, organ meats including liver but also kidney, heart, and tongue whether from cows, chicken, duck, or other animal or even fish like cod are super nutrient-dense. So if you can find ways to include them in your diet, you’ll be getting extra deep nourishment that is so helpful in the postpartum period especially.
Of course, this is just one category of nutrient-dense foods you can focus on postpartum to help you replenish. The Root & Branch Guide to a Nourished Fourth Trimester covers more foods and an overall nutritional strategy for supporting your body with food postpartum.
3) Take magnesium baths (or use magnesium lotion).
Magnesium- which I commonly refer to as the “mama mineral” is a very commonly deficient nutrient for new moms. It’s another mineral we use up rapidly when stressed, yet it’s also calming and is involved in thousands of enzyme reactions in the body. It’s also a key mineral for cellular metabolism, so if we are burning through our stores too fast or have already become depleted, our energy really suffers!
Many women are told to supplement with magnesium, but that can actually be problematic. For one, there are so many different forms of magnesium from citrate to glycinate to oxide and more- and they’re not all equal. Plus, if sodium and potassium levels are not in balance, supplemental magnesium can actually do more harm than good. It can drive these minerals down even lower and add more stress to the body- doing the opposite of what magnesium should do!
But transdermal forms of magnesium- meaning those we absorb through our skin- are actually often better tolerated so can be really great ways to fill up our magnesium stores.
Plus, baths are super relaxing and allow for alone time- two things many new moms desperately need. Magnesium baths can become a nourishing self-care ritual- light some candles, put on some relaxing music or a podcast, read a book, or just close your eyes and enjoy the silence! Even just one or two a week can do wonders.
And if you can’t do baths for whatever reason such as early postpartum, foot soaks are another option! Magnesium lotion is also great. Apply it on your belly, back, thighs, or even feet! (Doing so before bed may help with sleep, too).
My top favorite brand for magnesium products including bath flakes and lotion is Ancient Minerals.
4) Ditch dieting.
Although this is fourth, it is probably the most important place to start (or at least, work towards because the process can take some time). Postpartum is simply not the time for dieting and if you’re depleted, it really makes no sense to reduce your energy and nutrient intake even more! Plus, diets add stress and no mom needs more of that! Stress actually increases nutrient needs, so it puts us into a vicious depletion cycle.
You just really can’t replenish and revitalize your body if you don’t have a nourished foundation- and this means getting enough food overall, but also consuming balance macronutrients and eating consistently to support your blood sugar and energy.
Unfortunately, grazing and skipping meals are so easy for busy, overwhelmed, under-rested moms and sometimes this is really tough to change. This is where doing some food prep and being intentional about taking little breaks to eat is really important. Asking for help, too- especially early postpartum- can be crucial!
This free download, Nourishing Yourself Fully, is a great resource to start learning how to shift your nutrition away from dieting. And if you want to dive even deeper, check out my signature program, Nourished Roots, which has 12 modules jam-packed with the information and guidance needed to support your healing journey, replenish your body, and restore your energy.
5) Work with practitioner who knows how to help you feel better.
Speaking of getting help, enlisting the support of a qualified practitioner is truly the best way to not only take tasks off your plate and reduce stress, but shorten your healing timeline. You can take out the guesswork and get real answers, gain accountability, and simply have someone in your corner who can properly personalize and adjust your healing protocol over time.
Hiring a practitioner can be an investment, but in the end, it saves you time and energy- things you’re likely limited in already- and can even save you money especially if you’ve been trying different supplements, seeing doctors who haven’t been able to help you, and are spinning your wheels trying to feel better.
Specifically, functional practitioners are trained to do the digging and find out what’s going on under the surface- why do you feel the way you do and what can be addressed to improve your symptoms? Conventional/Western medicine doctors don’t typically practice with this root-cause approach. Many women are left feeling frustrated, confused, and even hopeless when they’re told “you’re labs look normal” even though they feel terrible.
As a functional nutrition practitioner- and one who specializes in prenatal and postpartum health- it is my goal to ensure women are heard, supported, and feel confident in their path towards healing. Moms deserve to feel good- we need to in order to tackle the demands of motherhood! Plus, the wellbeing of mothers impacts far more than the individuals themselves. Learn more about my approach here.
6) Prioritize non-food forms of nourishment.
It can be easy to get wrapped up in the nutrition piece when it comes to replenishing our bodies, but food is actually not the only factor that matters. Becoming a mom is an encompassing experience, impacting physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social health and more. So healing and supporting your best health need to take a holistic approach!
So on your journey, be sure to include non-food forms of nourishment like sunshine (especially in the morning), movement that honors the season you’re in, social connection especially with other moms, emotional and nervous system support tools like journaling and tapping, and pursuit of things that bring you pleasure and joy! Don’t get so wrapped up in aiming to eat a perfect diet that you forget about doing the things that make you feel your best.
If you’re ready to enlist the help of an experienced and knowledgeable practitioner who can do the investigative work and provide specific guidance to help you heal, apply to work 1:1 with me! I utilize a foundational, root-cause approach, use specific functional assessments, and build my clients personalized comprehensive restorative protocols. Let’s work together to create a plan to get you back in balance and feeling amazing.