A Typical Day in the Life of a Busy Woman
Women often describe their day, something like this: she gets her family ready for school and work in the morning, making breakfast and lunches for all, and then either takes her own breakfast on the road with her (coffee and a granola bar), grabs a coffee and a muffin through a local drive-through, or skips breakfast altogether.
She then hits her very busy job, praised for the amount of work she gets done in a day, but there is often so much to do, she either doesn’t take a lunch or eats through it.
Her workday is done, and so she rushes home to prepare supper and does the dishes, usually spending her evening driving kids around to their activities or finishing up more household chores. Eventually, crashing in front of the TV for an hour or so before bed.
How Stressed are You?
Some women realize they are stressed. But a lot of women, after describing a day like this, will say the following when I ask about how stressed they are:
- “I just have the typical Mom stress”
- “I know I have a lot on the go, but I don’t feel stressed”
- “I just have basic, everyday stress”
Why You Don’t Realize You’re Stressed
The tricky thing about stress is that sometimes it isn’t that obvious when your body is in the stress response. It can be particularly hard to catch because of a few reasons:
- Stress is normalized. Society wears busyness as a badge of honour. You don’t know your body is stressed because it hasn’t been NOT stressed for a long time. You see everyone else going at the same pace as you and they seem fine, so you feel like you should be too.
- You don’t necessarily feel mentally overwhelmed. Perhaps you have developed good mental coping and have strong personal connections helping you to feel mentally well. However, you don’t realize that stress can present in your physical body, with physical symptoms.
- A lot of the time we are busy in our minds, and not so in tune with our body. Your body could be giving you signs that it is stressed and you might not be noticing.
But, chronic busyness and that feeling of rushing from one thing to the next is making your body stressed. Neglecting some of the basics is causing your body stress, such as under-fueling yourself (not eating enough food and skipping meals), sitting too much, and not getting restorative sleep.
Signs of Stress
Some signs and symptoms of potential stress in your body:
- Low energy and/or difficulty sleeping (1)
- Digestive issues, such as constipation, diarrhea, GERD, etc (2)
- Changes in libido (3)
- Headaches and/or chronic pain (4)
- Getting frequent colds (5)
- Mood changes, such as increased risk of anxiety and depression (6)
- High blood pressure (7)
- And more!
Are you experiencing symptoms on that list? Have you ruled out other causes for those symptoms and been left without answers? Stress could be at the root of how you’re feeling.
Building Your Resiliency to Stress
When you are dealing with stress (hint: the majority of us are), I have written the top 8 strategies (pick one to start – this shouldn’t be stressful :P) to incorporate into your day to help recover from stress and start feeling your best so you can start waking up refreshed and ready to take on your day.
P.S. Whenever you are ready there are 5 ways I can start helping you to have higher energy and build resiliency to stress so that you can do the things you want to do. The things you deserve to do!
- Grab a copy of my free feminine boosting energy guide – click here
- Follow me on the ‘gram – click here
- Work with me privately in my signature program, the Energized & Empowered 3-Month Natural Health Experience – book your complimentary discovery call here
- Get on the waitlist for the next offering of our women’s group health program, the Wild Collective – click here
- Book your initial fertility focused consult here.
References:
- Kocalevent, R., et al. (2011). Determinants of fatigue and stress. BMC Res Notes, Jul 20;4:238.
- Creed, F. (2019). Review article: the incidence and risk factors for irritable bowel syndrome in population-based studies. Ailment Pharmacol Ther, 50 (5): 507-516.
- Bodenmann, G., et al. (2010). The association between daily stress and sexual activity. J Fam Psychol, 24 (3): 271-279.
- Sarzi-Puttini, P, et al. (2020). Fibromyalgia: an update on clinical characteristics, aetiopathogenesis, and treatment. Nat Rev Rheumatol, 16 (11): 645-660.
- Pedersen, A. (2010). Influence of psychological stress on upper respiratory infection — a meta-analysis of prospective studies. Psychosom Med, 72 (8): 823-32.
- Hammen, C., et al. (2009). Chronic and acute stress and the prediction of major depression in women. Depress Anxiety, 26 (8): 718-723.
- Liu, M.Y., et al. (2017). Association between psychosocial stress and hypertension: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Neurol Res, 39 (6): 573-580.