Day-to-Day Stress: Working Wife and Mother!
Monday, June 28th, 2010By Nisha Jackson PhD, MS, WHCNP, HHP
Consider a day in the life of a typical working wife and mother. She gets up too late to exercise and jumps into the shower after yelling at her children to get out of bed. She throws together breakfast for the kids and slaps peanut butter on bread for their lunches. She grabs a cup of coffee and a toaster-pastry for herself while bolting out the door. The gas tank registers empty, and there’s no time to fill it. Her workday has meetings scheduled back-to-back, and the kids must be picked up right after work.
She knows from the get-go that she’ll never get it all done!
At about 10 a.m. she takes a few deep breaths and stretches her neck. There’s no time for lunch, so she buys snacks from the office vending machine and drinks more coffee.
She forgets to drink water.
Her workday ends with an overflowing in-box and unanswered messages in her voice-mail box, including one from her best friend, whom she hasn’t seen in months.
She has no time for friends.
Some co-workers remain at work to finish projects — they’re the ones who are headed for promotions — but at 5 p.m. she rushes out to pick up the kids. There’s still no gas in the car, so she detours several blocks to a gas station. En route she glares at the ignorant drivers who go the speed limit in no-passing zones. She snaps impatiently at the dawdling gas station attendant before peeling out toward after-school care. A childcare worker taps her watch as our harried mother roars up 15 minutes late.
The kids are tired and cranky.
She tells herself, Hang on – you can make it. She’s hungry, tired, and sad, and her thoughts drift to the unopened package of chocolate cookies in the treat drawer at home. Her husband is home from work and watching TV, asking “What’s for dinner?” as she walks through the door. She has no idea and rummages through cupboards and the fridge while chowing down on a cookie. The kids are agitating for food, and one needs help with a science project. Her husband goes for a run.
The mail remains unopened, the laundry basket is full, and the house is a disaster. She settles on macaroni and cheese with wieners, garlic bread, and frozen veggies for dinner. She fills up on the casserole and bread, but has room for ice cream later. She helps the kids with homework, tucks them into bed, and then collapses into bed herself. Her husband insinuates that this would be a great night for sex and edges closer. She groans, but not with pleasure.
If you can relate to the above, welcome to the club: You are most likely churning out a poisonous level of stress hormones — a condition I call toxic stress, and it’s simply too much to withstand on a day-to-day basis.
There’s hope for you, and a plan for a change to regain balance and to put an end to this hormonal turmoil! Next post I will be sharing 5 simple actions and solutions that can benefit the stressed-out busy woman!
Best of Health, Nish!
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