Stress busting tips for women over 40.

Are you handling stressful life circumstances?

If you’ve ever experienced any of the following, you have or you are handling stress;

• Pregnancy and becoming a parent

• Faced infertility 

• Had an injury or illness or witnessed a loved one go through this

• Changed location or career

• Had multiple house moves

• Ever been a single parent

• Lost someone dear to you

• Faced redundancy or redeployment

• Gone through separation, divorce, or marriage reconciliation

• Experienced bullying or abuse of any kind at any stage in your life past or present…

  …to name but a few..

Here’s the key -

Stress creates changes in our hormones and impacts how we think.

It’s a rush. 

It’s helpful in the moment to have those chemicals coursing through us but we can become accustomed to living life amped up on stress chemistry. We forget what normal feels like in place of our ‘always exhausted’ lifestyle!

We become inadvertently stress- addicted and over time, without realising it, we accept stressful jobs, difficult relationships and life circumstances because we need them to feel like life is normal.

Oh I know this sounds ridiculous but bear with me...

Tunnel Vision

When we’re stressed, we get tunnel vision and don’t notice who else can help us. We don’t have time to think strategically about why we’re doing what we’re doing and consider things carefully.

In a stressed out state, we unwittingly add or create yet more stress because quick decisions are needed.

Or they certainly feel like they are.

Many women over 40 have informal caring responsibilities for partners, parents and in- laws, in addition to jobs and parenting. We can become accustomed to high levels of stress chemistry which can leave us feeling peri- menopausal and exhausted with quite a few coping strategies for stress that sadly deplete us even more.

What does that look like?

• Constant change.

• Dramatic relationships.

• Unhelpful coping strategies for stress which cause yet more stress like junk food binges in the evening….  so common!

• Placing unrealistic demands upon ourselves and not asking for help when we need it.

• Soldiering on instead of admitting we have a pattern of behaviour or are feeling stuck in our life.

• Underestimating the cost we’re paying - financially and in our wellbeing of not handling our worries and burdens.

• Feeling unsettled when happiness or contentment is possible. Waiting for the other shoe to drop because contentment feels abnormal.

• Comparing ourselves with others instead of valuing our own path and needs.

  
  

Look through the list of stressful life situations above. If you see yourself in more than 3 of these experiences, you may have become attuned to living in a stressed -out way.

Our brain gets wired for what is normal for us.

It gets wired to expect stress chemistry and we find ourselves unwittingly tolerating or even exacerbating difficult relationships, accepting overly stressful situations in our friendships, jobs and lives because without us realising it, it’s become our new normal to feel stressed, irritable and exhausted.

Being calm and settled feels…..odd and unsettling!

Coaching Tips To Reduce Midlife Stress & Chose Contentment at Midlife;

• Is it time for a radical review of physical, emotional or mental clutter in your life?

Bless clothing, jobs and people with love and let them go if it would reduce stress.

• Chose to love the home you’re in instead of always feeling the need to move on, especially if you’ve moved a lot in your past. Is it possible to be content where you are? 

Ask yourself “What’s good about this place?” Make a list.

• Consider changing job to reduce stress and improve work life balance or to work in an area that you’re genuinely enthused about. You spend too much time at work to be miserable and will never regret leaving a workplace that drains you, even if the salary is a bit less. Consider working less hours as well.

  Give yourself permission to love your work. 

• Having a more realistic measure of health than reaching your 20-something weight when you’re over 40. Obesity should be addressed, but there are many ways of measuring health and wellbeing besides the weighing scales. It’s very unlikely that you’re going to have the same body as when you were in your 20s, so give yourself a break. 


   Create a new vision for your health and wellbeing that includes how you feel about yourself emotionally as well as physically.

   Wellbeing is about much more than the weight on the scale.

• Go gently if you’re in a life transition right now eg new job, location or handling acutely stressful circumstances such as caring for a loved one or processing loss.

Ask “Where am I placing an unrealistic expectation upon myself ?”


Get support to navigate stress.

If you’d like support and accountability to make changes in how you think and show up in your life, let’s talk. I have 2 spaces available in my coaching practice and I’ve opened my calendar for those who are ready to change the way they’re living.

Click the link and book your free call.

We’ll have a brief chat and if we’re a good match for each other, I’ll lay out a plan for how we could work together over 3 months to transform your life, health and wellbeing.

If you’re feeling stressed or like you’re at a crossroads in life, get in touch. By being honest and sharing where you’re stuck, worried or sick of patterns, you’ll get a solution that saves you time, money and effort. 

It’s time to stop trying to sort things out alone! Going round in circles with the same situations and results is draining you even more.

Coached with me before?

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I have a special discount for returning coachees so if you’re up for more results, get back in touch now!