The HappyÂ
Heads Story
Professional Relaxation. Hardly Ever Serious.
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Meet Sophie, the massage therapist on a mission to bring a new kind of relaxation to humans the traditional wellness industry forgot.
Sophie: The Prequel
The Plot Twist
I hit 38, and for the first time in my life, I started struggling in a way I never had before.
Chuck in complex caring responsibilities for my folks, fluctuating hormones, and a brain that had spent decades quietly over compensating for itself, and things got overwhelmingly hard, fast.
Then came the late ADHD diagnosis. I'd never been big on labels, but this one gave me something unexpected: Relief.
It didn't change who I was. It gave me understanding… and anyone who knows me knows I love a good connect the dots moment!
It also gave me a greater appreciation of my gifts, my blind spots, and a whole lot more empathy for anyone trying to navigate a world that was clearly designed for very specific brains, preferences, and ways of existing.
The Burnout
I turned 40 and started a new job. It quickly began to feel out of alignment with who I am. No blame - a classic case of underfunding, understaffing and not enough hours in the day. But the combination of everything equalled total burnout for the first time ever.
For me, burnout looked like paralysis. Worries about my folks, new job, my moral compass, all of it bubbling up until my brain overboiled. My thoughts simply stopped. Completely.
For someone who has never ever switched off, that is a very unfamiliar feeling. Terrifying, actually.
My GP called it an acute stress reaction. I called it overboiled cauliflower brain. I slept for 2 weeks and recovered slowly for another 4.
The advice from professionals: Self-care.
"I had a lightbulb moment: I want to help people & workplaces avoid ending up here."
ThE Happy (heads) bit
Once my brain was able to brain clearly again, I had a very obvious lightbulb moment: I want to help people and workplaces avoid ending up here. Then (unsurprisingly!) another thought quickly followed: but what about self-care for the people who don't actually enjoy typical self-care?
So, I decided to put my qualifications, lived experience, and very particular set of skills to work. Turns out my sometimes questionable career detours, unwavering desire to help people, ADHD lightbulb moments, and colourful little squiggles weren't that random after all. They were just taking their time to form something special…
CLOUDS!
And that's how Happy Heads, and Cloud Club by Happy Heads, came to be.
These days you'll find me helping busy-brained, tired-bodied, overstimulated humans finally relax. And little rebel Sophie couldn't be prouder!
The rebel genes were ALWAYS strong!
ThE BIT NoBODY TOLD US
A note on late diagnosis in women.
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For years, ADHD was seen as a condition affecting hyperactive, misbehaving young boys only (*eye roll*). Girls and women were largely overlooked, because their struggles tended to show up differently. Anxiety. Overwhelm. Perfectionism. Chronic disorganisation. Being praised for "trying really hard" while absolutely drowning… silently. Because we all know girls should be seen and not heard, right? (*eye roll 2*)
Then POW! Perimenopause arrives and cranks the volume all the way up.
Hormones play a significant role in attention, memory, and emotional regulation, so when they start fluctuating, previously manageable ADHD symptoms can become suddenly, overwhelmingly harder to cope with. And here's the part that stopped me in my tracks: emerging large-scale research suggests that women with ADHD may enter perimenopause around 10 years earlier than women without it, with symptoms often peaking between 35 and 39, rather than the typical 45 to 49.
So no, women aren't suddenly "getting ADHD" in their late thirties. They've had it all along. The hormones just finally made it impossible to hide.
For onlookers this can be confusing. For the person living it, it can be frustrating and truly frightening.
Imagine the systems and coping strategies that have quietly kept your life together for years suddenly failing. It can feel like losing yourself. Understanding and support at that point isn't a nice thing to have, it's everything. Especially at work, where so many people are expected to just keep going.
But with that, also imagine decades of masked struggles suddenly making sense. Better late than never.
The good news? More of us know now, and we're talking about it. Loudly!
Even the most high-performance engines need a pit stop.
Burnout isn't weakness.
Leaving school, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do... but does anyone at that age? Unless you're a proper smarty-pants on a fast track to somewhere elite, or lucky enough to have parents who've already mapped it out for you. No shade, but I'm from Cambridge, I didn't go to Cambridge... very different thing!
Anyway, back when I was in Cambridge education (at the very prestigious Netherhall secondary school, ha) I recall filling in a multiple-choice questionnaire. It was fed into a giant machine which confidently spat out a single career suggestion:
Hairdresser.
I scoffed. I rebelled. I got 2 unrelated diplomas and somehow ended up in NHS admin (admin? of all things! Worst. Rebellion. Ever.) Still, it scratched my itch to help people, so there was that.
Older, wiser, diagnosed Sophie gets the hairdresser thing completely. The creativity, the chat, the human connection, helping people feel great. It's basically everything I love... and judging by that mullet, everything I needed to learn about too!!
Still, I climbed the career ladder I chose, and did well. Turned out I was good at finding novel solutions, and had a real knack for refining long, chaotic processes, which was recognised and celebrated.
Looking back now, this makes total sense. ADHD brains and chaos have a very complicated relationship. We may accidentally create it, but we do not enjoy it. And I absolutely cannot function in it.
The Original Happy Head
Once upon a time, there was a tiny human rocking a wonky smile, a proud mullet, and a very busy brain. Big on fun, feelings, ideas, and overusing exclamation marks (!!!)