And so, then the pituitary gland might just tell the ovaries to shut up the ovulation shop completely. “If you don’t ovulate, you don’t produce the lovely big surge of progesterone, and progesterone not only plays a huge role in fertility, but it also is a very powerful anti-anxiety and anti-depressant, and it’s a diuretic, so it allows you to get rid of excess fluid.” 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? Progesterone acts as an anti-anxiety agent, an anti-depressant and a diuretic, allowing us to excrete excess fluid. However, our adrenal glands are also where we make our stress hormones from; namely adrenalin and cortisol. As you now know, adrenalin communicates to every cell in your body that your life is in danger, while cortisol says that food is scarce. As your body links progesterone to fertility, the last thing it wants for a woman is to bring a baby into an environment where it perceives she is not safe and that there is no food. The body, therefore believes that it is doing you a great big favour by shutting down the adrenal production of progesterone. 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. Yournervous system doesn't know that the adrenalin pumping inside youis not from a physical threat to your life, but rather your body's response to the caffeine you drink, or your sense of everydaypressure.

I’ve noticed a shift in women’s health and behaviour over the past 16 years. Never before in my work have I witnessed so many females in a rush to do everything. Tobe all things to all people. Never before have I seen as many reproductive system and sex hormone challenges as I see now. The challenge for too many women today is that they live in SNS dominance, in a constant state of "fight or flight". This can play havoc with weight management, food cravings, sleep quality, patience, moods, self-esteem, and overall quality of life. 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. The consequence? Rushing Woman’s Syndrome. Biochemically this is known as Sympathetic Nervous System Dominance… but as a scientist, I didn’t believe anyone would know what that meant.For too many women, estrogen is dominant (to progesterone) leading into the menstrual period and this is the typical hormonal imbalance that is the basis of PMS – heavy clotty painful periods, swollen tender breasts, and mood swings that can oscillate from intense irritability to immense sadness, sometimes in the same hour and often for reasons that cannot be identified! This can feel like chaos for a woman… and everyone around her. As a scientist and health professional I aim to help people live their lives with more PNS activation. Letting the "rest, digest, repair and reproduce" arm of our nervous system do its jobcan have the most profound effect on health.

There is much to be said about slowing down, and stopping with rushing through life. Once that you have come to the edge of life you will notice it. Whether you are a man or a woman doesn’t matter. You are an infinite soul experiencing the finite human experience. The moment you realise that it’s the Now that counts – then you have finally come to a turning point in Your Life, and I will congratulate you with all my heart. 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. The term ‘Rushing Woman’s Syndrome’ was coined by Dr Libby Weaver. It evolved out of her observation of women’s health being drastically affected by the constant rush that many women now live in. “Never before have I seen the extent of reproductive system problems that I now see. Women are tired and wired. Sex-hormone based health problems such as polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, infertility, debilitating menopauses and exhaustion have never been greater, and the role of stress in this is undeniable when you look at both the body’s chemistry and the scientific research.” (Weaver, 2011). We’ve made more progress in the workplace than we have in the home. Research shows that if a woman and man both work full time and have one child, she does twice the amount of housework and three times the amount of childcare he does. So essentially, she has three jobs and he has one. It is time for the dawning of new era for women, which means it has to be for our men as well. Bring a sense of awareness into your life. Think about why you do what you do, and what lead you there. Awareness, rather than self-judgment is the first step in this journey to retire from the rush.

One word. Actually, that’s two words. Take a deep breath and slow down. Relax and let your body de-stress. The perceived need to rush, whether a woman displays it on the outside or keeps it under wraps, is changing the face of women’s health as we know it in a detrimental way; from PMS to IBS, from losing our tempers to feeling like we can’t cope.

The way we speak to ourselves is of vital importance. Is the voice in your head a critic that is always telling you that you should have/could have done more; that what you did was not good enough; that you are failing? It’s possible to change that voice from a critic to a cheerleader that congratulates you on another job well done, praises you for being good enough and encourages you to take time for yourself. Get Support Dr Libby’s unique and powerful approach to health examines the biochemical, nutritional and emotional reasons behind what might be driving the body to behave in a certain way. I like to say this biochemical and emotional scenario is common but not normal. It doesn’t have to be this way. What if the symptoms your body gives you, what if the parts of your body that frustrate or sadden you, are simply messengers asking you to eat, drink, move, think, believe or perceive in a new way? It is time to see them as the gifts that they are. These symptoms can be wake up calls for women to make changes in their lives they may not otherwise make, enhancing their health, energy, vitality and greatness in the process. There was a really big shift in the people who were walking through my door,” she says. “Before, people would normally turn up on time and the symptoms they were experiencing, for the majority, were less intense. And then I started to notice that the majority of people were running late for appointments – and that’s okay! – because they had tried to cram too much into the time before the appointment. So, then they ran late – because, if everything fell into place and they got a car park, it would be okay, but they had pushed it right to the edge of the time.” Men want to please the female, it’s their biological nature. Just don’t hurt his ego – he will not be your amigo.For the first half of the cycle, we make a small amount of progesterone from our adrenals glands, walnut sized-glands that sit on top of our kidneys. Progesterone’s job reproductively is to hold the lining of the uterus in place, yet it performs a host of other biological functions aside from those involved in reproduction.

This perceived need to rush and the relentless pursuit to be all things to all people is causing detrimental changes to our bodies and driving a long-term crisis in women’s health. One of the hormones driving this is adrenalin, which communicates to every cell in the body that your life is in danger. As I described in my TEDx talk science suggests humans have been on the planet for between 100,00 and 150,000 years and for the entirety of that history, that’s what adrenalin has meant to the body. The nervous system doesn’t know that the adrenalin amping you up is not from a physical threat to your life but rather your body’s response to the caffeine you drink and/or your perception of pressure. 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 Do you constantly feel overwhelmed? Are you always looking for more time to get things done? Do you feel like you have no time for you anymore? Are you suffering from “Mum Stress” or Rushing Woman Syndrome? Why is it that so many mums are feeling increased levels of stress? Where is it coming from and, more importantly, what can we do about it? The Rushing WomanThere is suggestion that a lot of the stress that women experience is due to the expectations that we place upon ourselves – the expectation that we can and should be able to do it all…. 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. When we live on adrenalin we tend not to sleep restoratively, crave (and give in and eat!) sugar despite our best intentions, and find it harder and harder to utilise stored body fat as a fuel, instead burning glucose. Yet when we primarily burn glucose as a fuel (instead of body fat), because it is our “get out of danger” fuel, the body can’t risk the glucose fuel tank getting too low so the desire for sweet food gets switched on… hello harsh self-talk when you give in to your sweet cravings even though you said you wouldn’t.