Holistic Health Coaching

Your body is designed to be healthy, strong, energetic, beautiful. But it evolved within a completely different context than the one we live in now - different food, different lifestyle, different kinds of stress. As soon as humans began creating our own environments, we began throwing ourselves out of balance.

Our work now is to find that balance again, and create an environment that supports our inherent abilities to heal and thrive, using all of the resources at our disposal.

You may be here because you’re searching for holistic remedies for acne, natural migraine medicine, or natural fertility treatments - these are my specialties.

But holistic health coaching, based in Traditional Chinese Medicine, doesn’t just heal one issue. 

By carefully observing the whole body, the whole person and the whole life, we get to the root causes of health issues and create an individualized plan to help you feel your best.

I’m Dr. Sarah Emily Sajdak, and suffering migraines is what brought me to Traditional Chinese Medicine 20+ years ago. I’d suffered with migraines my whole life, and I tried going to Western medicine doctors, but they really had no idea what to do. They gave me advice like “quit your stressful job” (I was teaching high school French at the time) or “gain weight!” (I wasn’t under-weight, this made no sense). And then they gave me prescription meds that caused even worse headaches, or made me too tired to drive or work (and isn’t the whole point of curing migraines so you can live your life?). 

So I started seeing an acupuncturist and integrated herbs into my diet. I noticed fairly quickly that the frequency and severity of my migraines decreased (and eventually they went away entirely). At the same time, I began noticing fewer bouts of insomnia and anxiety, and improvements in my energy and mental clarity. Healing the imbalances in my body to treat my migraines helped my whole system function better. 

My approach:

I’ll be honest with you: There are no magic pills. Feeling really good *most of the time* takes work. 

When we work together, we will create a personalized plan to help you achieve optimal health, clear vibrant skin, joyful reproduction, headache free days, and more energy to fuel your life. My goal is to teach you how to notice how you feel, and teach you what to do to improve it, so you become empowered to heal yourself.

As our coaching progresses, you will get to know yourself more deeply. You’ll learn to notice your reactions to what you do, what you eat, how you sleep. You’ll learn to feel what you actually feel, without the interpretations of outside stories (from society, from parents, from friends). 

And as you start aligning your diet and lifestyle around what makes you feel good, you’ll find unexpected clarity in other aspects of your life. Empowering you further. I will use all of the tools at my disposal to find the unique combination that works best for you. Some of what we’ll explore includes:

• Herbs, supplements and a whole-foods based diet (food as medicine)

• Lifestyle analysis to uncover stressors that can affect your health and wellbeing

• Movement & exercise recommendations

• Mindfulness & Mindset work to reduce stress that can slow or block healing

• Energetic impressions and energy work to balance spiritual/physical disharmony

• In-person acupuncture (or a recommendation for an acupuncture professional local to you).

Holistic healing is about more than your whole body - it’s about your whole life 

Here’s how we can start your holistic health journey.

Back into Balance: Online Holistic Health Coaching to balance the body for beautiful skin, headache relief, fertility & optimal health

5 half-hour coaching sessions online, one session every other week, for 10 weeks

Ten weeks is enough time to see significant results from our work together, and it’s long enough to form new habits you’ll want to stick with (because you’ll love the results). In those ten weeks, here’s what we’ll do.

• Our work starts with an introductory call to understand what health issues you’re experiencing, and what goals you have for your health. Tell me what you’d like to focus on, and as we work to bring your whole body into alignment, we’ll spend extra time creating a targeted plan to solve your specific issue.

• 5 half-hour online video call sessions (one every other week). These calls are focused, highly informative, and quite capable of getting you to the transformative goal you want. 

• After each session, I will send a follow-up email with herb/supplement recommendations and recap the plan we’ve made for the next two weeks.

• We’ll talk about your lifestyle - sleep, stress, career, exercise, relationships and habits - to find what might be affecting your health in your larger environment. We will evaluate your diet for potential causes of imbalances and make manageable modifications to support your health goals. And together, we will identify your improvements and determine the best plan to help you continue feeling better.

• In-between-session support via email. Ask me questions or tell me your observations, and I’ll reply within 24-48 business hours.

Package Price: $444

Traditional Chinese medicine offers far more solutions than Western Medicine. So if you’re frustrated and almost ready to give up — especially with acne, migraines or infertility — you may find what you need with a more holistic approach and truly transformational lifestyle improvements.

Not sure if this is for you? 

Try a Free 10-Minute Consultation

Success Story #1: Acne

I was referred to Dr. Sajdak in the beginning of 2017 by my facialist, to help address the acne and inflammation I had all over my face. I had been plagued with cystic acne since 2012. It began in my cheeks as deep cysts, spread to cover my entire jaw line in painfully sensitive clusters, started moving down my neck, and then finally showed up on my forehead as well. Every cyst was large, painful, irritated, and bright red. Previously to treat my skin, I had been on dermatologist prescribed topical and oral antibiotics, and a number of expensive multi-step skincare regimens. The acne only persisted, and the inflammation and irritation was actually increased by these treatments. The flora of my outer skin barrier was raw, sensitive and completely shot. I truly felt like my skin was a lost cause, that I would always be completely covered in red blotches, and that there was no treatment possible for my sensitive and problematic skin.

I booked my first appointment with Dr. Sajdak, and was nervous and skeptical. I had never received acupuncture before, and was very nervous about experiencing it. Dr. Sajdak was warm, inviting, and calming when I met her in her office. She listened to my journey with my skin and examined the top and bottom side of my tongue and took my pulse. For my very first session, I was nervous about the needles, so she did cupping on my back with just a couple of needles to start draining excess heat from my body. I can’t even remember the feeling of the first needle going in because I couldn’t feel it at all. Through the entire session, Dr. Sajdak was reassuring, gentle, and confident. I returned almost every week for around a year.

The first area to exhibit massive improvement was my forehead. Within about a month of treatment, my forehead acne was almost completely gone. After another few months of weekly treatment, Dr. Sajdak and I would often look in the mirror directly afterward sessions and notice that a lot of the dark spots of irritation in my skin had faded, just from that session alone. I recall in September of that year, putting on makeup, and realizing for the very first time that my cystic acne had drastically decreased. By the end of that year, my cystic acne had totally cleared on my cheeks, my jaw line, my forehead, and my neck. Dr. Sajdak’s work truly created lasting change within my body and for my skin by treating my deeper rooted issues, rather than being a temporary fix. I have yet to have a breakout on my face as bad as my condition prior to working with Dr. Sajdak. I still get a pimple here and there but they are few and far between, nowhere near as deeply set as the cysts I had before treatment with Dr. Sajdak, and they dissipate with a little time and care. I am now exceptionally proud of my skin’s health. I went to my facialist who referred me to Dr. Sajdak a few months after weekly treatment, and she examined my skin and said “It’s completely transformed!”. The confidence I have in my skin’s health now is due to the time, care, and efficiency of Dr. Sajdak. I am grateful for her expertise, patience, and kindness every day when I look in the mirror.

Success Story #2: Headache

I feel endlessly grateful my intuition led me to book my first appointment with Sarah in December 2019. I had been suffering from debilitating tension headaches for 2 years and it was beginning to interfere with my relationships and work. I felt completely drained and forgot what it felt like to wake up with energy. I knew I needed professional help, but felt resistant to taking medication that would only mask the symptoms rather than explore the root. I felt so hopelessly overwhelmed and came across Sarah’s website where I impulsively booked an appointment for the next day.

The moment I walked into Sarah’s office I knew immediately that I wasn’t going to be alone in my health journey. Sarah has a special way of listening and making you feel deeply understood with zero judgement or shame. She is honest, wise, and confident, while also encouraging and kind. Not to mention her office is beautiful, warm, and a perfect safe haven in NYC. Sarah is beyond attentive during sessions and available anytime in between. I felt so taken care of and completely trusted her. 

After seeing Sarah weekly for a couple months, I noticed major shifts in my mood, skin, and energy. At first my headaches seemed to be coming more frequently, but as Sarah reminded me it’s normal to “get a little worse, before things get better.” She was right. I can confidently say her acupuncture gave me the energy to dramatically change my lifestyle and now I rarely get headaches. I finally feel in control of my health again and it started in Sarah’s office. Thank you for everything!

Still not sure if this is the right path for you? 

Back into Balance 10-Week Coaching is perfect for you if…

• You’ve been curious about Traditional Chinese Medicine, or holistic approaches to fertility, acne or migraines

• You’ve tried the Western pill/topical/prescription approach and it hasn’t worked.

• You’re open to making some diet and lifestyle changes with the goal of feeling so much better

• You’ve tried acupuncture and LOVED the pre-needle talking part! This program grew out of my acupuncture consultations because I found that some people came more for our 20-minutes of coaching than the actual acupuncture. Acupuncture is a wonderful tool that can accelerate progress, but coaching is really the foundation for making the big shifts that bring us back into balance.

Back into Balance Coaching may not be for you if…

• You’re not open to changing your diet or habits 

• You want a quick fix. Quick fixes aren’t what we do here (they don’t work). 

• You want someone strict to tell you exactly what to do and when to do it! I’m happy to help you create a routine that works for you, but I’m not a drill sergeant. I won’t tell you what time to get up and do yoga. I won’t tell you mouthful by mouthful what to eat. I prefer to give guidelines and have you improvise within them.  

• You’re looking for a ‘magic bullet’ cure. The way I practice medicine is half art, half science. Every person is unique, and my approach to healing is to create the healing that is suitable for you in the moment. There will be trial and error (it’s how we learn - it’s also the Scientific Method). We try, we observe, we improve, we repeat.

Any questions?

Schedule a Free 10-Minute call with me and I’ll be happy to answer them.