Rushing Woman's Syndrome: The Impact Of A Never-Ending To-Do List And How To Stay Healthy In Today's Busy World

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For example, the thyroid needs iodine, selenium, zinc and iron as its main nutrients. It also responds well to good progesterone levels and thyroid function is suppressed by excess estrogen levels, which has become too common in too many women. And the constant production of stress hormones can also prevent the thyroid from working properly.” Rushing Woman’s Syndrome Question 3: What Is Your Liver Trying To Tell You? Rushing Woman’s Syndromedescribes what is scientifically known as Sympathetic Nervous System Dominance and the biochemical changes this drives in the body (see extended explanations of the science below). I wanted women to understand the significant way stress can impact the chemistry of their body, the many body systems it can affect, and offer them practical solutions to this. One of the biggest challenges facing women’s health today is the way stress hormone production is interfering with sex hormone balance. Too many women now suffer with premenstrual syndrome (PMS), PCOS, endometriosis and experience debilitating menopauses, which can have both physical and emotional health consequences. Women get to blame rushing women's syndrome or PTSD or some other hormonal or psychological problem. Men get to shut up and tolerate it or else pay for the divorce and see their life's work get carved up so their ex-wives can "find" themselves in a two bedroom apartment, take trips to Bali with their girlfriends and go in with dates with men they meet on Tinder then complain all the men want of a single mother is sex. Acute stress situations cause an increase in stress hormones – adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol. Cortisol is important to blood pressure regulation and the normal functioning of several body systems including cardiovascular, circulatory and reproduction. During stressful times our heart rate increases and blood vessels dilate (to allow increased blood flow to the big muscle groups), increasing blood pressure. If this stress continues and therefore the release of stress hormones, this can increase the frequency of symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, and depression. For example, long-term exposure to cortisol can contribute to weight gain.

Recently grabbing my attention was a book written by nutritional biochemist Dr. Libby Weaver. What grabbed my attention about this book was its title “Rushing Woman’s Syndrome – The impact of a never ending to-do list on your health”. It is an excellent book that examines how constantly rushing and having a never ending to-do list has a substantial cost to our physical and mental health. The nervous system plays a significant role in the stress response and it has a number of parts. The two branches related to this concept are the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), also known as the amped up “fight or flight” response, and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), the calming “rest, digest, repair and reproduce” arm of the nervous system. The challenge for too many women today is that they live in SNS dominance and this can play havoc with weight management, food cravings, sleep quality, patience, moods, self-esteem, and overall quality of life.In more scientific terms, Libby describes it as this. “The hypothalamus [control centre region in the brain] is getting the message from the constant production of stress hormones that we’re not safe, because that’s what stress hormones still mean to the body, and then the hypothalamus is telling that to the pituitary gland [hormone-producing gland in the brain] and then the pituitary is telling all the other glands, ‘We’re not safe: respond accordingly.’” Estrogen and progesterone are two of a woman’s sex (steroid) hormones and their ratio to one another has the potential to make us happy or sad, vivacious or anxious, pimply or clear skinned, and our clothes looser or tighter. Big roles for two little hormones! So where is this stress coming from? The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicates that two-thirds of women with dependent children are in the workplace – whether this be for career aspirations or for financial necessity (or both). Research from the Australian Psychological Society also indicates that regardless of the hours in paid employment, women continue to see themselves as the primary care giver for their children and primarily responsible for household duties. So it would seem that despite the fact that the majority of women with dependent children are working we are continuing to hold on to traditional roles. Our Struggle with Inner Expectation But deeper than that is a story we made up about women a long time ago. A story we tell ourselves that sayswe aren't good enough the waywe are. That we aren't tall enough, slim enough, pretty enough, brainy enough, on time enough. Because who we are is not enough,we spend our lives trying to please everyone around us, putting their needs ahead of our own. That, in a nutshell, is Rushing Woman’s Syndrome. And if you’ve thought while reading this, “Boy, I bet that’s got worse in the past decade,” you are bang on the money. Libby says one of the things she hears most often – and particularly during the pandemic years – is “Oh yes, I bought that book – it’s sitting beside my bed, I just haven’t had time to read it yet.” (The Rushing Woman’s curse).

From painful periods to fluid retention, from anxiety to yelling at the people we love the most in the word and berating ourselves afterwards, it has been a long time since women’s health has faced such an intense hormonal challenge. This interference of stress hormones with sex hormones is one of the major biochemical factors I describe in Rushing Woman’s Syndrome. We rush around and do all we can to make sure that others love and appreciate us, so that we never ever have to feel rejected, ostracised, unlovable, criticised, yelled at, or like we've let others down. Whilst we can all feel a bit stressed at times, constant/ongoing/worsening symptoms should not be ignored. Most stress can be better managed and psychologists are trained to teach you effective coping strategies and skills. Immediately I related to the concept of the “Rushing Woman” and thought of numerous clients who have presented in my therapy room feeling overwhelmed by the demands of their daily lives. I thought of my friends that have spoken about their struggles in balancing their work/home lives and I considered my own journey where I have at times felt that I was trying to juggle a hundred different things and failing miserably. The Cause of Our Stress

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These days women are often in a permanent state of stress – juggling their family, career, finances as well as a chaotic lifestyle. There are biochemical consequences to this constant rush – resulting in imbalanced hormones, HPA axis dysfunction, sluggish thyroid glands and so on. By consequence, at any point in time, you may break down. It can be a physical reaction, or an emotional reaction. The answer is to ask ourselves “ How can I change my reality and/or lower my expectations”. This means setting more realistic goals/demands for ourselves and learning to accept that things are not always going to be how we want them to be or how we think they should be. It means that we learn to feel comfortable in making ourselves a priority and recognising the importance of taking care of ourselves just as well as we do others. So, how can we look to support our thyroid? “When it’s not working, I’ll often use the phrase ‘the road in is the road out,’” Libby says. “The first thing is to find out what’s leading your thyroid to not function at its best.”