Welcome!

Welcome to the start of the Haelan Empowered Blog

Hi! And welcome! I am so glad you’ve found this space. I want to start off by saying that you are not alone on your health and wellness journey. There are so many of us wanting to move from a space of just surviving -feeling worn out, run down, not our best- to actually thriving. We are tired of being told everything is normal or "that's just a part of getting older". We know there is a different way to shape our future - and our health and wellness is foundational to it. We are ready to make tweaks to our lifestyle so that we can actually live our life and be present for those we love today and for a long time to come. 

My intentions for this blog are to provide you with relevant and evidenced based information, provide insight, and to inspire you to move a step forward in your wellness journey. I hope to empower you to make the lifestyle changes you need so that you can be your most brilliant and authentic self. I aim to help women primarily ages 30-55 with issues related to hormone imbalances - think cortisol, insulin, sex hormones. What we will talk about is nutrition, sleep, movement, mindset, supplements, spirituality (energy), and the science behind what can help us thrive. This information can benefit anyone, so even if you don't identify as female and aren't in your 30s, 40s, or 50s - feel free to follow along! I will be posting weekly so that hopefully whatever you are learning from this blog will continue to motivate you towards your health dreams.

While I do have a background in medicine (read more below), this is not meant to be medical advice. It is meant to be a wellspring of knowledge aimed at empowering your mind, body and spirit. Anything here should be run past your primary provider before you choose to implement it. Also, there is always new research coming out and what might be relevant and up to date today or at the time of a post, may not be 6 months to years down the road - so always check to see if there are updates!  

Now that that’s out of the way, did I say I’m so glad you’re here?!

 A bit about Haelan Empowered

Haelan [IPA: 'heɪlɪn] - to heal, to cure, to alleviate anxiety

Empowered - having the knowledge, confidence, ability

Here at Haelan Empowered, we take a holistic and integrated approach to addressing hormonal imbalances. Based in functional medicine principles, we focus on lifestyle changes that make the biggest impact. We empower you with knowledge, skills and confidence to make the changes necessary to help you combat your stress. 

We work with clients one-on-one to address three core components of the self: mind, body, spirit. Addressing these three pieces together, rather than individually, honors our multidimensional nature and allows us to tap into what nurse researcher Janet Quinn described as the Haelan Effect. When we address body, mind and spirit we can move into a receptive state and activate transformative healing. Working closely together we craft a personal, tailored plan incorporating these principles so you can get back to feeling your best! If you want to learn more, click here. 

A bit about Lola 

My name is Lola and I am a Family Nurse Practitioner turned health consultant/coach. Growing up I always wanted to be in medicine. I loved taking care of people when they were sick, helping them to feel better. I was fascinated by physiology and all the parts and pieces of us that work together to make us who we are. During college at The University of Georgia, I had the opportunity to shadow a number of different healthcare providers and found that nurse practitioners were treating people the way I thought made sense- focusing on the whole person and incorporating the bio-psycho-social model of medicine. I received my Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree from the University of Portland and went into family medicine. Prior to starting in family medicine, I worked as an RN in the operating room. 

Working in primary care and internal medicine over the past 5 years, I saw firsthand how many disease states were related to lifestyle choices and the consequences of those choices. So many of us live with chronic diseases or their precursors that have been shown to express themselves based on lifestyle (Nyberg, Singh-Manoux, Pentti, et al. 2020). In fact, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine found that healthy lifestyles were associated with significant gains in years lived without major noncommunicable diseases between ages 40 and 75 (Nyberg, Singh-Manoux, Pentti, et al. 2020). 

My FNP education had integrative medicine and complementary-alternative-medicine woven into courses, but I still felt something was missing. Somehow I stumbled upon the concept of functional medicine: getting to the root cause of a disease state, then using modifiable lifestyle behaviors to re-balance our system and move from a state of dis-ease to wellness; a chance to truly find health. I decided to delve more into functional medicine and learn more about how to use modifiable lifestyle changes to improve health and even bring remission to some disease states. I do believe that changing our lifestyle, our habits, our exposures, our stress levels, our mindset, our relationships can lead us to health and wellness. This is the way forward for a majority of us and will help us to prevent, lessen or reverse chronic disease states.  

I know this is true because I’ve experienced it first hand. During these past 3 years, I’ve used what I’ve learned about the functional medicine approach to alleviate my stress and recover from burnout post 2020 (not all pandemic, my daughter was born that March and I changed jobs towards the end of the year, had poor boundaries around work and volunteer obligations - recovering people pleaser over here). Symptoms of  anxiety, dysthymia, joint pain, muscle tension, night sweats, brain fog, and fatigue plagued my days and nights. It’s a bit of a blur, but post-baby I turned to coffee and sugar (hello peanut butter M&Ms) for energy. I dropped my meditation and kundalini yoga practices because I felt I had no time. I rarely exercised except for the occasional walk. I definitely didn’t sleep the recommended 8 hours (this is still something I’m working on).

Through testing, I found I was deficient in Vitamin D, had some early markers of insulin resistance, an abnormal cortisol curve, low testosterone and low estrogen. I did an elimination diet to lower my overall inflammation, supplemented with vitamin D, started weight lifting a few times per week, restarted my yoga and meditation practices, picked up daily gratitude and tried being okay with slowing down overall. It’s been a journey and will continue to be a journey, but because I’ve done it - I know you can too. 

What I have found after listening to thousands of people- information is not the issue. The issue is finding the right information for you, implementing change, addressing behaviors, having an accountability partner and someone to guide you with gradual but consistent change that overtime leads to a whole new you. I want to help you bridge the gap between where you are now and where you want to be on your health and wellness journey. Hopefully this blog will provide you with the inspiration, knowledge, and tools you need to get to where you want to be.  

I’m glad you’re here and ready to follow along.  

If you want to learn more about the Haelan Method or want to learn more about working 1:1 click here - www.haelanempowered.com

You can also connect with me on instagram at lolamacleandnp

References:

Nyberg ST, Singh-Manoux A, Pentti J, et al. Association of Healthy Lifestyle With Years Lived Without Major Chronic Diseases. JAMA Intern Med. 2020;180(5):760–768. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.0618