Female Stress Syndrome

Everyone has stress in their life. Whether it’s your career, your family or balancing both. Living under constant stress can keep you up at night and ruin the quality of your life. It can also affect your health. Studies show women are more prone to stress-related problems like depression, frequent panic attacks, and chronic conditions, such as migraines. Here is a woman who has developed a four-step plan to get you stress-free.

Stress affected nearly every aspect of Joann’s life. “I’d be really terrible to live with for a while. That’s when I knew, when it was affecting my personal relationships,” she says. “I couldn’t see my friends. I barely went out. It was all about work.”

For psychologist Witkin, stress once wreaked havoc on her health. “I had migraine headaches very, very frequently. I was so fatigued. I definitely was getting back spasms all the time,” she says.

Witkin learned to teach herself, and others, to cut their stress by following the four P’s. First, parent yourself. “You have to watch your nutrition just as you would your children,” she says.

Second, be practical. Witkin says women use themselves as cheap labor. She says, skip the laundry. “They won’t remember the laundry,” she says. “They will remember the day you sat and played Monopoly.”

That brings us to number three, play, and four, pause for 20 minutes a day to relax. This can reduce stress by 50 percent. “Women have a 100-percent-higher risk of having eating disorders when they’re under stress, and that’s just their body. We also have a reproductive system that can be altered and hampered,” Witkin says.

Now Joann finds ways to control her stress, especially during the workday. “I need to get up,” she says, “Physically get away from my desk. Either go to the bathroom, go downstairs.” And even if she can’t get up from her desk, just breathing deeply or taking a moment to call a friend helps relieve the tension.

Witkin’s research also shows stress can cause problems like difficulty swallowing and hair loss. Harvard studies show stress reduction can lessen 50 percent of physical ailments. Also, Witkin says make sure you pause about 20 minutes each day because research shows the average American woman is running 21 minutes short between the time she has and the time she needs everyday.