Chapter List

• Introduction to Total Health for Women
• Acne
• Alcoholism
• Allergies
• Anemia
• Angina
• Appendicitis
• Arthritis
• Asthma
• Back Pain
• Bladder Infections
• Breast Cancer
• Breast Implant Complications
• Breast Lumpiness
• Bronchitis
• Cervical Cancer
• Cesarean Section
• Chronic Fatigue
• Colds and Flu
• Cold Sores
• Colorectal Cancer
• Constipation
• Depression
• Dermatitis
• Diabetes
• Diarrhea
• Eating Disorders
• Eczema
• Endometrial Cancer
• Endometriosis
• Fatigue
• Fibroids
• Fibromyalgia
• Food Allergies
• Foot Pain
• Gallstones
• Gender Discrimination
• Gum Disease
• Hair Loss
• Headache
• Hearing Loss
• Heartburn
• Heart Disease
• Heart Palpitations
• Hemorrhoids
• Hepatitis
• High Blood Pressure
• High Cholesterol
• Hiv and Aids
• Hysterectomy
• Incontinence
• Infertility
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease
• Inhibited Sexual Desire
• Insomnia
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Lactose Intolerance
• Laryngitis
• Lung Cancer
• Lupus
• Menopausal Changes
• Menstrual Problems
• Motion Sickness
• Muscle Cramps
• Neck and Shoulder Pain
• Oral Cancer
• Osteoporosis
• Ovarian Cancer
• Overweight
• Painful Intercourse
• Panic Attacks
• Pelvic Inflammatory Disease
• Phlebitis
• Physical and Emotional Abuse
• Pneumonia
• Post-Pregnancy Problems
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Premenstrual Syndrome
• Psoriasis
• Raynauds Disease
• Repetitive Strain Injury
• Rosacea
• Sexually Transmitted Diseases
• Sinusitis
• Skin Cancer
• Smoking
• Stress
• Stroke
• Temporomandibular Disorder
• Tendinitis and Bursitis
• Thyroid Disease
• Ulcers
• Unwanted Hair
• Vaginal Infections
• Varicose Veins
• Vision Problems
• Water Retention
• Yeast Infections

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Stress

Stress

Fighting the Fallout from Life

At 37, Fran Davis was the quintessential Philadelphia lawyer. She worked 80 hours a week, traveled from one case to another all over the country, worked on some of the biggest and hottest cases in corporate America and loved every minute of it.

"I was a born litigator," says Davis. "I have a real go-for-the-jugular thing about lawyering. It's exciting and it's exhilarating. Yes, it's stressful. But I don't look at stress as a negative word. I need a certain amount to do what I want to do, to be competitive."

Unfortunately, she adds dryly, "it tends to get out of hand." Stress can build until, rather than giving you an edge, it becomes destructive. You lose your concentration, forget things and start to get disorganized.

All this happened to Fran Davis. But she's not the only woman to let stress get out of hand.

Seventy-five percent of women and 70 percent of men between the ages of 25 and 44 say they experience "a lot" or a "moderate amount" of stress in their lives, according to a survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland.

And a study by the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company in Minneapolis reported that more than half of the workers in high-stress jobs suffer from physical or mental problems such as exhaustion, insomnia and headaches. Further, women seem particularly affected. Not only are they more likely to report stress-related illness, they are more likely to feel burned out and think about quitting.

In a survey by the Families and Work Institute in New York, 40 percent of women said they found it hard to get up and face another day at work every morning, and 42 percent said they feel "used up" by the end of the day.

Why are so many women burned out, used up and stressed out? Hormones, evolving social roles and a national marketplace that's reinventing itself are some good guesses. And unlike Fran Davis, who reduced her litigation work, cut her hours in half, moved to the country and worked from home, most women--particularly those with families to support--can't take such radical steps to reduce stress.

The Survival Advantage

The way our bodies respond to stress is preprogrammed. It's an ancient survival mechanism, genetically transmitted from generation to generation, that has kept our species on the alert for centuries.

When the senses perceive any threat to our existence, the brain triggers a flood of chemicals throughout the body--primarily epinephrine, norepinephrine and adrenocorticotropin--that will prepare it to fight or flee. The heart beats faster, more oxygen gets to the muscles, energy from fat and sugar is released, blood clotting speeds up and immune responses slow down.

In turn, adrenocorticotropin also triggers the release of the hormone cortisol, which essentially maintains this turbocharged state as long as the threat exists.

But although a woman's stress response works in much the same way as a man's, there are some major factors that make her response to stress far stronger, says researcher Eva Redei, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacology and psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

"Women naturally have higher levels of cortisol than men," she explains. Dr. Redei's animal studies indicate that the female hormone estrogen also increases a woman's chemical response to stress. Significant changes in levels of progesterone, another female sex hormone, alter the stress response the same way that cortisol does. Our levels of progesterone increase eight to ten times just before we menstruate.

"These changes in stress responses are like riding a roller coaster," says Dr. Redei. They give women a survival advantage in terms of their ability to sense danger and react within a heartbeat. The problem is that a woman's stress response system can't tell the difference between a deadline-intense project at work, an injured child at home and a marauding dinosaur. It just goes to full alert at the drop of a hat--raising our levels of stress and dampening our immune system just enough to make us vulnerable to everything from colds, cancer and heart disease to inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes and asthma.

Let Jack Do It

Although studies indicate that the complexity of women's roles--worker, wife, mother, daughter, friend--actually acts as a buffer against stress from any single role, trying to deal with the sheer number of tasks that are involved in these roles can produce enough stress to sink a ship.

But do we ask for help?

Not on your life. "We think we need to do it all on our own," says therapist Mandy Manderino, Ph.D., associate professor at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

Not only do we need to be the perfect wife and Mom, we need to be the perfect employee as well. And that's not fair, she adds--to anyone.

"It is important for women to stop overfunctioning and ask for help," she adds. "Some women are beginning to discover they need not do it all. However, other women continue to try to be everything to everyone. It is these women who are at high risk for stress-related problems."

She also points out that women may be able to get more help from their spouses than they have in the past. "Because greater numbers of women have joined the workforce, men are beginning to share in the cooking, cleaning and child-care responsibilities. This is not only liberating for women but for men as well," says Dr. Manderino.

Here's what you can do to get some much-needed help.

Set your priorities. Of all the myriad tasks demanding your attention, ask yourself which is the most important. Your daily to-do list should be based on your personal goals, says Dr. Manderino. "Is an absolutely spotless toilet bowl a top priority for you?" she asks. "Or is it more important to go out in the yard and play baseball with your kids or perhaps finish your college degree?"

Get off the back burner. "Oftentimes women put themselves last or leave themselves out entirely when setting priorities. They have difficulty making time for themselves," says Dr. Manderino. They can just never get to the gym or find a half-hour to soak in the tub. "They say, 'Well, I'd like to, but all these other things come first.'

"But if you're giving away energy, there's got to be a way to get back energy," she points out. "There has to be some 'me' time. And if that constantly gets moved to please someone else, you're going to continue to be stressed."

Pick a time every day and set it aside to do things just for yourself, says Dr. Manderino. Play, relax, exercise--do anything you like. But it can't be unpleasant work, and it can't be for anybody else but you.

Re-energize. Fight stress by renewing your personal energy with some type of relaxation exercise, says Dr. Manderino. Do yoga, t'ai chi or meditation--whatever works for you.

"I'm a really active person and I can't meditate," says Dr. Manderino. "I can't sit still. So I do a walking meditation. I walk and focus on the 'now.' I anchor myself in the present by trying to notice the wildflowers, the smell of the damp ground and the trees."

Let go of tension. "Once in the morning and once in the afternoon, I like to close my eyes and take in a nice, deep breath, and as I do, become aware of any tension in my head, scalp and neck," says Dr. Manderino. "Then I let out the air and release any tension that I might have. I take in another breath, become aware of any muscles that might be tight in my head, scalp, neck, shoulders, arms, chest, abdomen and legs, then, as I breathe out, let it go."

Short-circuit negative thinking. "Sometimes I create stress by talking to myself in a way that's critical," says Dr. Manderino. "I'll say, 'That was stupid!' or 'How in the world did you ever get this job?' "

When that happens, "I try to catch myself and correct it immediately. I say, 'Wait a minute--you've had a really busy day, you're really stressed out, no wonder you forgot such and such.' In other words, I take the time to say something in response to my negative thoughts and actually dispute them with a positive statement."

Ditch the bloodsuckers. "Sometimes because women have been brought up to make relationships work, we stay in relationships that aren't very good for us," says Dr. Manderino. "And the relationship becomes a stressor.

"As women, all of us can name people who suck the life's blood right out of us. They are energy drainers, and it's very important to set limits with them. In some instances, we may have to leave them out of our lives entirely.

"Focus instead on people who are good to you and give you energy," says Dr. Manderino. Spend time with people who are nurturing rather than toxic.

The Workplace Revolution

Although there are no reptilian dinosaurs roaming the workplace today, there are tremendous changes there that many workers perceive as equally threatening.

Fueled by global economic expansion and the tremendous economic changes of the 1990s, some American corporations are abandoning antiquated management theories left over from the time when no worker was trusted to work on his own and a "supervisor" was the guy who flogged the slaves.

The result? "Midlevel management as we know it is going away," says organizational psychologist James Campbell Quick, Ph.D., professor of organizational behavior at the University of Texas at Arlington and editor of the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. It's being replaced by workers who have been organized into teams and "empowered" to work on their own.

Team members at corporations such as Texas-based Chaparral Steel and the Ford Motor Company in Detroit take responsibility for finding the best way to get a job done, then they do it on time and with the quality expected by the rest of the workforce, says Dr. Quick. Critical feedback and approval are furnished by team members as well as supervisors, and there are procedures to help keep everyone on track. And of course, should the odd employee slack off or not do his job, there are consequences. Management has not abandoned the power to hire and fire.

In corporations where this type of organization has been in place, results have been positive, says Dr. Quick. "Stress levels of both management and workers go down. As one management friend said after he relinquished his authoritarian role, 'My stress level dropped 1,000 percent when I turned in my title as ruler of the world.' "

Unfortunately, any major workplace changes cause uncertainty among the workforce, and uncertainty causes stress, says Dr. Quick. So although a team-oriented organization will reduce stress in the long run, in the short run it can produce one of the problems it's designed to solve. Here are some of the ways a woman can prevent as much stress as possible from a changing workplace.

Build a nurturing network. One of the key elements in reducing workplace stress is to build a support system that will nurture you, says Dr. Quick. And for women, that can mean pulling together a group of women with common problems and concerns.

In-depth interviews with top male and female executives conducted by Dr. Quick and his colleagues attempted to find out what these highly successful CEOs and CFOs did to reduce stress.

"We looked at everything," says Dr. Quick. "And we found that they didn't all relax, they didn't all play, they didn't all exercise, and they didn't all pray. But what they all did do was build social support both in and out of the office."

In particular, female managers got their support from the women who worked for them, says Dr. Quick. The managers formed the nucleus of a group of women that gave the managers the honest feedback and emotional caring they needed. In return, the managers helped the other women develop their work skills. The result was a sense of support for all members of the team--manager and workers alike.

Take control. The less control you have over your work, the more stressed you're likely to feel, says Dr. Quick. But be realistic about what you can and cannot control in a corporate setting. "You can control your own behavior, thinking and response," he says. But you cannot control whether the economy improves, a building starts going up or orders for steel start pouring in.

Sort out your responsibility. Figure out what you are and are not responsible for and don't let people dump unrelated tasks on your plate, says Dr. Quick. Refer them to someone else.

At the University of Texas, for example, Dr. Quick is known as the "stress doctor." So even though his responsibility is studying and teaching about organizational stress, students come to him during office hours and outside class to talk about their personal problems--marriages that aren't working out and the like.

His solution? He refers them to campus and community counselors, ministers and rabbis, not because he doesn't care or because he doesn't want to help but because he knows that in order to keep his own stress levels low, he can take responsibility for his students' learning but not for their personal lives.

Stay ahead of the steamroller. As the economy continues to evolve over the next decade or so, so will your workplace, says Dr. Quick. And the best way to keep your stress levels low is to position yourself to take advantage of the changes.

"Try to understand what's going on and figure out how you're going to fit into the new structure," says Dr. Quick. "Ask yourself, 'How can I add value to the new organization? Do I need new skills?' "

Then go out and equip yourself to meet the workplace's evolving needs by taking courses, attending workshops or even playing around with new technology related to your field.

Know when to go. When you begin to sense that it's time to move on, do. Otherwise you'll create high stress levels in yourself and those around you. "Most people know intuitively when it's time to go," says Dr. Quick. "But the number one behavior to look at is performance." When the work environment stays pretty much the same but you no longer meet your own performance expectations--you didn't sell as much product as you expected this year, for example--then you know it's time to leave.

Use a chain saw. People who have become dead limbs on the corporate tree should be cut off, says Dr. Quick. If you're in a position to do so, "get rid of them or move them into a position where they can become revitalized." It may sound heartless, but the stress they cause in others can create major meltdowns--of organizations and other folks.

How do you know it's time to get out the chain saw? "You get a sense that they're roadblocks," says Dr. Quick. Instead of percolating with new ideas and welcoming new ideas from others, they're locked into doing things the same old way. So the people who work for them are constantly having to figure out how to do end runs around them, and that causes major stress.

"There are also performance indicators," says Dr. Quick. Each corporation has its own that are specific to its particular business. For example, "faculty are dead when they get bad student evaluations or produce no new research, or students refuse to take their classes."

He chuckles. "Am I dead yet?" he asks, then answers, "Not according to my provost."