By consequence, at any point in time, you may break down. It can be a physical reaction, or an emotional reaction. Unless you have Wonder Woman’s (or Wolverine’s) powers, then don’t try and imitate the original. This undertaking is bound to fail. You are a unique, graceful and fragile human being (male or female).

It’s been over a decade since Dr Libby Weaver’s game-changing book Rushing Woman’s Syndrome first came out – and women have been rushing even faster in the years since. Libby talks to Capsule about how the past years have taken a greater toll on us, the messages our body keep trying to tell us and why her new course was designed with rushing women in mind. 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. 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.Chances are, you might be at risk of this. “A really common scenario I see is iron deficiency, because that is the most common nutrient deficiency in New Zealand, particularly amongst women of menstruation age, pregnant women and young children. It’s significant. And we don’t just need iron for the transportation of oxygen around the body, which is hugely tied up with energy and metabolism; we also need good iron levels for thyroid hormone production.” And then the nervous system gets involved, because when we constantly produce stress hormones, it activates the sympathetic nervous system – which then moves us away from parasympathetic nervous system activity. That’s the part that’s responsible for digestion, sleep, repair work and reproduction, which is one of the reasons all of those parts of our bodies – and then our lives – get wobbly when we’re stressed. 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 Your mood changes before your period, everything annoys you and/or you feel like crying but for no reason. 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.

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). 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.’” Unexplained weight gain – you’re eating and moving the same way, or you feel like you’re eating a lot less than others but your body fat isn’t shifting.For the first half of the menstrual cycle, estrogen is the dominant hormone, laying down the lining of the uterus. Estrogen wants a menstruating female to get pregnant every month of her life, whether that is on her agenda or not! 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. It all boiled down to one simple truth that so many of her patients shared: “None of it was a disease; it was just that nothing was working as well as it once did,” Libby says. “What I then realised is that what was basically driving it was the constant and relentless output of stress hormones and that was very, very new to us as a species.” For this first edition of 2018 I thought we should discuss something I heard on the radio last week: The Rushing Woman Syndrome.

The Rushing Woman Syndrome was coined by Australian author, speaker and nutritional biochemist Dr Libby Weaver – and it does sound like an excellent book to get my hands on soon. 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. Libby is keen for people not to underestimate the role of ovulation – and in particular, that flood of progesterone – even if you’re not trying for a baby. “Anxiety is such a multi-facetted experience for people, and there’s so much that’s behind it,” Libby says. “I’m not suggesting that good progesterone levels will be the answer for everyone but my goodness, they contribute.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. There are basically weekly headlines about how much wine is good for you – ‘But the French have a daily red wine!’ we cry – but Libby puts it very simply: there isn’t a healthcare provider in the world that advocates daily wine. “That doesn’t mean ‘don’t have wine’, but it means, get honest with yourself,” Libby says. 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. 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. 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.

When we make estrogen, it’s got to cling onto an estrogen receptor to exert its effects. Once that unit of estrogen has run out of puff, it is sent to the liver for detoxification. The liver has to change the structure of estrogen before we can excrete it by going to the loo.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? 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. There is absolutely no way that we are going to talk about New Year’s resolutions. For one, I already talked about it last year, and for the other, I think that if you want something to change (if you want to change something about yourself) you don’t need to have January 1 to come about to begin with your plans.