On Her Own Terms
5 minute read
In 1997 on the launch of her book, Secret Paths, a study of women in midlife, psychologist and writer Terri Apter told the Irish Times in an interview that, “I was fascinated by the number of women...who were very career-minded but also stressed out of their minds by nanny problems, by child problems, by fatigue. They talked about sleep like a hungry person talks about food.” Almost 25 years later, exhaustion remains a defining issue for women in their middle years as they see-saw their way through the highs and lows of managing a career, motherhood, and caring responsibilities.
Exhaustion is more than just tiredness. It is a complete depletion of your physical, emotional and mental resources, and it is startling how many women grin and bear it under the misconception that this is ‘normal’, or simply the reality of life in our middle years. Anne Marie Boyhan was no different. It was only when the 42-year-old, marketing and communications professional and mother-of-two began to suffer from the shakes in December 2019 for a sustained period of weeks (like most women, she brushed aside her own health concerns initially and just got on with it) and was signed off from work by her GP that she began to take the condition seriously and consider how her lifestyle was affecting her health.
Boyhan had built a successful career in the corporate world, winning and developing significant marketing campaigns and heading up content and social media, while managing a team of five. Despite having a “fantastic” husband, Boyhan describes her pre-Covid life as “frenetic” – mad dash commutes, créche drop-offs, game face on in the office, coffee after coffee to keep going, evenings spent juggling her social media role with her responsibilities at home. “I couldn’t switch off, I didn’t know how to wind down, but worst of all I found it impossible to sleep. I was also putting on weight because I’d no time to exercise. My lifestyle was taking its toll,” she explains. Even her boss came straight out and told her she looked “wrecked”.
Shortly after, on a holiday to her husband’s family in New Zealand at the end of 2019, Boyhan says the sunshine, complete break from routine, and quality family time gave her a fresh perspective and she decided firmly on the plane home that she wasn’t prepared to settle for anything less than “a life and a career on my own terms”. She left her job in July 2020 and began to consider what she really wanted to do professionally. At the same time, she was obsessively researching how to sleep better. It was then she had her eureka moment and made the decision to set up her own business – an online sleep wellness platform.
The Sleep Care Company launches at the beginning of June. Boyhan considers sleep the forgotten element of wellness, describing it as more important than diet and exercise for our sense of wellbeing. Indeed a January 2021 Pinterest article stated that “sleep care is the new self-care”. Her aim is to develop “a community for women who want to invest in both sleep and self-care”. According to an article on Health.com last year, not practicing self-care is one of the 12 most common mistakes women make in middle age. “If you’re constantly focusing on others and not dedicating any time to recharge, you won’t have an ounce of energy left for anything or anyone,” the article states. Like so many other women, Boyhan had fallen down a well of nurturing everything and everybody but herself – career, children, marriage, colleagues.
Chronic sleep deprivation also makes Health.com’s eye-opening inventory, and one of the first items you can invest in from The Sleep Care Company will be a sleep journal containing all of Boyhan’s learnings about developing a positive evening routine backed up with sleep tips from the world’s best sleep scientists. She spent months researching and practicing habits that would encourage a good night’s sleep. The first time she followed a fully planned and bespoke evening routine, she slept soundly for the first time in years.
Like so many women, Boyhan had spent the past 20 years following the traditional trajectory towards a ‘good’ and ‘successful’ life, complete with pensionable job, impressive job title and rewarding salary, but she describes herself as a new woman since leaving the corporate world behind. “I’m so grateful for all the opportunities my career afforded me, but my life has been transformed since I took this leap of faith.”
She’s done a 360-degree pivot from the workaholic nature of corporate life to the holistic world of wellbeing, and it’s changed her personal life as much as her professional.
These days, her mornings begin with a weights or pilates class – something she always aspired to do in her previous life but simply couldn’t find the time for – followed by a walk with her youngest daughter Lexi who has not yet started school. She then works from about 11.30am through to 5pm – she has childcare in the afternoons to facilitate working these hours – and although building a start-up is intense and requires she spread herself across all aspects of the business, she still finds it far easier to switch off in the evenings than she used to. She is fully present in everything she does now rather than being physically at home but worrying about work and vice versa.
Boyhan is currently studying functional nutrition – a personalised method of optimising health based on individual genetics, lifestyle, etc – and has attended sleep coaching courses. She’s planning to hold sleep retreats as part of The Sleep Care Company’s offering later down the line, maintaining that our biological clock craves routine and that developing healthy habits is essential to what scientists refer to as good “sleep hygiene”.
Maya Angelou once said: “As you grow older you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” Boyhan is building a new career that is allowing her to help herself and other women. Although she admits launching your own business can be a scary path to take at times (she grew up on a farm in Westmeath and her mother was a primary school teacher, so she had no entrepreneurial example to follow), she’s listened to her gut and says she feels “fully aligned with her business”.
For a woman who only 18 months ago was depleted of energy and confused about her future, Boyhan strikes me now as a proud and confident woman living her best life. “I’m building a career on my terms which embraces my values. I don’t need anyone else’s validation anymore.” Bravo.
Marie Kelly, May 2021
what do you think, dear reader? tell us in the comments below…
join the conversation
share and comment below, we’d love to hear your thoughts…