About

Our Story

For more than 30 years, my life has been shaped by health struggles that rarely found answers in traditional medicine including breast cancer, thyroid problems that resulted in Hashimoto’s autoimmune disorder, chronic fatigue, an unnecessary gallbladder removal and a workplace injury that resulted in a knee surgery that almost killed me. Seven days after that surgery, after my doctor ignored classic DVT symptoms, I fell unconscious and was rushed to the emergency room where I spent over a week in the ICU diagnosed with golf-ball sized massive pulmonary emboli in both lungs after the DVT dislodged and traveled to my lungs. It nearly took my life.

Each time, I searched for relief, for guidance, for someone to see me as more than a chart or a diagnosis. For someone to LISTEN to what I KNEW was happening in my own body. But the system I trusted kept falling short for me and later for the people I loved.

During that time, I spent almost two decades in law enforcement learning what real stress was and witnessing what it was capable of doing to the body. Not the kind of stress you read about but the kind that buries itself deep, steals years off a life and quietly erodes health long before symptoms ever appear. It was then that I was drawn to the subject of Officer Wellness. I helped design curriculum and taught Stress Management in Law Enforcement, and I assisted in facilitating a Post Traumatic Stress retreat for police officers. What I witnessed opened my eyes to what was truly needed.

I watched colleagues struggle with health issues only to retire and pass away within a few years from what likely could have been preventable disease if someone had addressed their root causes health issues instead of treating symptoms in a silo.

I retired in 2022 and moved from Tampa, FL to the mountains, a place I had already fallen in love with and visited monthly since 2012. I felt a deep connection here and I listened. I knew it was a calling of some kind and the possibility of healing the body, mind and spirit was in every stream, every breeze, every birdsong and every mountain trail.

In the few years since retiring, I watched two loved ones die from cancer while the medical system treated them like a tumor on a PET scan instead of human beings with stories, families and hope. I had spent my entire career protecting others from harm. Suddenly, I understood the message, the purpose and the path. I felt called to help people heal again only in a different way.

Through all of it, nature was my constant. My grounding. My reminder that healing doesn’t come from force but from rhythm, connection and returning to what’s real, to what is rooted in our ancestry.

Previously having earned a BA in Psychology from the University of South Florida and an MS in Human Capital from the University of Denver, I went back to school and became a Certified Holistic Health Coach through Trinity School of Natural Health. I earned a Board Certification as a Holistic Health Practitioner through the American Association of Drugless Practitioners, completed a Red Light Therapy certification through the Association of PEMF Professionals and enrolled in and am nearing completing at the Functional Nutrition Alliance to become a Functional Nutrition Counselor.

But the truth is: my real education came from surviving what I survived, and helping others survive their worst days.

Root Rhythm Restore was born from that lived experience, from decades of watching stress destroy lives, from losing people I loved, from navigating my own medical trauma and from realizing that healing requires partnership not prescriptions.

My work is not medical. It is human.

I partner with clients. I journey with them. I help them understand their bodies, their patterns, their stress and their stories. I believe in PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION, and I believe healing is a journey we take together.

Everything I offer — red light therapy, nervous system regulation, lymphatic support, coaching and functional nutrition education — is grounded in one philosophy:

Root in nature • Honor your rhythm • Restore your balance • Breathe with intention • Connect authentically

This isn’t a business for me. It’s a calling, a continuation of the same mission I carried throughout my law enforcement career – to protect and support people in the moments that matter most. Only now I’m serving in a different way. Not through crisis response but through connection. Not through protection from external harm but through guiding people back to their own internal resilience. Now, I help people reclaim their health, their rhythm and their hope. This is my commitment to you.

-Anna Richardson, CHHP • CFNC • CHHC