How Stress Sabotages Hormonal Health

We see so many professional working Mums who feel that stress runs their life, and ruining their family life!

Just getting through their day is a challenge and they long for the times when they just used to “whiz” through their to-do list.

But there are a few key things they are missing that’s letting stress be the “boss of them” and in this article, we’ll share how to release the pressure valve.

The Conventional Belief For Burnout: That’s just ‘Mum Life’ or a sign of ‘Getting Older’

It seems that everyone - and Mums in particular! - are stressed out nowadays and it’s no wonder with everything that’s happening - with their work commitments and their family obligations.

And what makes this time even harder is that it happened after years of “burning the candle at both ends”, and driving themselves hard to “just do it” and make things happen.

Most working Mum’s wonder why they used to have abundant energy while now they just feel so run down.  Oftentimes they will try to push themselves harder with stricter work schedules, more exercise, and restricting calories -  in an effort to manufacture energy. 

But this only backfires shortly after when they find themselves back in their old energy slump, or worse, feeling totally wiped out, and they just become more frustrated - not to mention getting snappier and crabbier with the kids! 

Most chalk it up to “having kids” or “getting older” or the stress of life has just finally gotten under their skin.  So they book an appointment with their doctor to figure out why they feel so off.

Their doctor will do some standard labs, which usually involve a blood test. 

While blood testing is important, it may provide only a small portion of the information you need, and usually, they will only check your thyroid, blood count, and some nutrient values.

So if your test comes back fine, they may suggest it’s just a sign of getting older or it may just be “stress” - which reinforces this false belief that nothing is truly wrong and you just have to grin and bear it.

Burnout as a Result of Adrenal Fatigue

One of the main things that women often miss about poor energy levels is their body’s response to stress and how that has become internalized and throws their hormone balance into a tailspin.

This has to do with constantly triggering the adrenal glands into action and putting them into a “fight or flight mode”.

It’s really not about “getting older” per se or “just stress” – it’s actually adrenal distress and stress hormones that are out of whack. And adrenal hormones are never tested as part of your standard check-up protocol, so this is why your doctor may say “you’re fine” when you don’t feel fine at all!!

So when people are constantly burning the candle at both ends, over-working (at work and in the home!), grueling work-outs,  eating and drinking things that trigger inflammation or restricting calories too much, this can create a negative stress hormone feedback loop that will leave them feeling drained, exhausted and even depressed.

So women often experience this “wired and tired” feeling throughout the day. Even though they are exhausted by the evening they have trouble getting restorative sleep even though they sleep 8 hours a night (and that’s if your busy work schedule or your kids let you!).

Many women suspect something is off with their hormone balance and they immediately blame estrogen or their thyroid, but what we find in our practice is that once we help them to balance their adrenal health, other hormones - like the thyroid & female hormones - rebalance naturally.

Rehabbing Emotions, Feelings & Addictive Doing 

We work on physical balance to restore healthy functioning and energy. However, we also help women with rehabbing their mindset and their emotions and feelings so that they can maintain adrenal health long-term and don’t fall back into patterns that lead them to adrenal burn-out in the first place.

What we see with modern society is that there's a lot of over-valuing ‘work.’ So people will overvalue their wealth-building or their business or their job, or their relationships with their partner or their neighbor, or their children for example. 

They place more value on these things, higher than their health. Which leads to them being either stuck in “hyperdrive” or “do-do-do mode”. They are literally addicted to doing.

And their body breaks down, their relationships break down, their family - THAT THING WHICH IS MOST IMPORTANT! - breaks down. Their stress skyrockets. So we work with working Mum’s to recalibrate their values & priorities, their mindset, and their lifestyle to support hormonal health, especially your adrenals that can impact the rest of your hormonal balance, which can then impact other body systems like the gut and detoxification, which we’ll get into later on in this short course.

Learn More About Stress & Hormonal Balance In Our FREE Video Course

To go deeper on the topic of stress and hormonal balance and the impact this is having on your family, register at this link for our free video course series on Conquering Hormonal & Gut Burnout & Rebalancing Naturally - https://www.chrisandfilly.fm/minicourse

Co-Authors: Chris & Filipa Bellette are the Co-Founders of Chris & Filly Functional Medicine, which is best known for turning time-poor, burned-out & frustrated professional working Mums & Dads, into Power Parents who are present, healthy & connected to their family, their passion, and their purpose in this world. They have worked with over 2,000+ burnout clients in the last 10+ years, with their own passion for creating Power Parents coming from their own personal experience of body, mind & family breakdown, after a prolonged period of physical and mental stress.

Filipa is an accredited Clinical Nutritionist, and a Functional Medicine Practitioner, graduating from the Kalish Institute of Functional Medicine. She is also a Ph.D. thought-leader, author, and award-winner writer in Human Rights. Chris is an accredited Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) Master Practitioner, holistic personal trainer, and holds a Bachelor of Human Movement Science, and has won multiple placings in state and national level sporting competitions.

To find out if this is something we can help you with, head over to book on for a - Free Discovery Call!