After Hitting "Rock Bottom" This Holistic Health Coach Learned That Stress Management Was Key for her Hormonal Health

Holistic Health Coach Carolina Salazar is a Tiktok favorite–she shares tips and information with her 280k followers about prioritizing wellness, repairing her relationship with food, and hormonal health. But she wasn’t always this knowledgeable; it took years of personal work to reach this point. She shares, “After many years of struggling with my relationship with my body and food, I reached a ‘rock bottom’ moment.” That moment spurned Carolina to find ways to manage her stress levels, prioritize her wellness and pursue a Holistic Health Coaching career.

Read on for Carolina’s story, how sharing her story on social media has positively impacted her life, and her number one tip for hormonal health.

Introduce yourself

My name is Carolina Salazar. I am a Holistic Health Coach, Wellness Content Creator and Podcaster. My goal is to help women find more balance and inner peace so they can create a sustainable, healthy lifestyle rooted in self-love. I do this through my “Inner Growth” brand.

What drove you to become a certified Holistic Health Coach?

I spent many years struggling with my relationship with my body and food, and I finally reached a “rock bottom” moment when I knew something had to change. I turned to resources like self-help books and podcasts and discovered tools like meditation, journaling, and therapy. Once I started incorporating these tools into my life, I began to heal from the inside and create a better relationship with myself. I realized this holistic approach was working for me, and I discovered the Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN) and knew I had to become a certified Holistic Health Coach.

As I was getting certified as a Holistic Health Coach, I began exploring my relationship to my menstrual cycle. It blew my mind that so many women lack key information about their bodies, hormones and periods, so I decided to specialize in hormone health through the Nutritional Coaching Institute (NCI). As I learned more, I also started sharing information about hormone health and cycle syncing through my content.

How has your presence on social media impacted your hormonal health journey?

Sharing my life on social media has brought so much value, and it really pushes me to live what I preach. I've learned that the best thing I can do to share my light online is to be an example and openly share what I learn along the way.

I also realized I am passionate about so many things because of social media–for example, my curiosity about periods and hormone health came from content I saw online. If it wasn’t for social media, I wonder if I would have decided to learn about hormonal health and pursue the certification.

What is the most valuable advice you have received during your hormone health journey?

The most essential hormone health advice I share with everyone is stress management. If you don't get your stress in check, getting all your other hormones in check will be hard. One element of social media and entrepreneurship is that sometimes, it can easily lead me to work 24/7 if I am not careful. I know that is not great for my cortisol levels, so I have to be very mindful to prioritize a self-care routine, disconnect from work and allow myself to put my phone down at a reasonable time so I can prepare for my “wind-down”/sleep routine.

I’ve learned that humans have prehistoric mechanisms at our core that are meant to keep us alive. However, we live in an overstimulating world that can sometimes cause us to take on too much and not rest enough, putting our bodies into a state of chronic stress.

Excess cortisol in the body over a long period of time can interfere with the healthy production of other hormones like estrogen and progesterone.

What guidance would you offer people currently facing challenges in their hormone health journey?

One of the best things you can do is create healthy coping mechanisms to reduce your stress—whether that is physical, psychological, emotional, social or financial stress. Some examples are: 

• Getting into bed early
• Being mindful of over-caffeination
• Mind dump journaling
• Meditation and breathwork
• Talk therapy
• Pursuing a creative activity like drawing or dancing
• Disconnecting from your phone before bed
• Releasing people-pleasing tendencies

Choosing one or a couple of those tools already goes such a long way and can really help manage stress and cortisol levels.