Why do you feel exhausted after a stressful event, especially when you managed to remain calm throughout the crisis?
Sometimes your body keeps you functioning while there are decisions to make, people to care for, and problems to solve. The exhaustion, body pain, poor sleep, emotional overwhelm, or difficulty concentrating may not appear until days, weeks, or even months later.
In this Wellness Reset episode of Limitless Living, Freddi explores why capable women sometimes crash after a prolonged period of stress.
You may have cared for a loved one, experienced a death or divorce, raised a family while working, managed a business crisis, lost a job, or spent months being the person everyone else depended on.
You handled what needed to be handled.
Then, when the worst part was finally over, your body seemed to fall apart.
Freddi shares how losing her father suddenly at six years old, holding back her grief for nearly two years, developing serious health challenges, and later learning to remain calm during frightening asthma attacks helped shape the woman she became.
These experiences strengthened her ability to remain calm and hold space for others. They also contributed to patterns of overfunctioning, overdoing, and believing she had to be the capable one.
Sometimes the woman who looks the calmest in the room is only calm because she learned a long time ago that somebody had to be.
In this episode, you will learn:
• Why the effects of stress may appear after the crisis has passed
• How prolonged stress can affect sleep, energy, digestion, muscle tension, pain, mood, breathing, and inflammatory processes
• Why being strong during a crisis does not mean your body was unaffected
• How strengths such as independence, organization, caretaking, and remaining calm may have begun as ways of adapting
• Why being capable is a strength, but believing you must always be the capable one can become a burden
• Five practical ways to begin helping your body recover after prolonged stress
The five recovery steps include:
- Notice what your body is doing
Pay attention to changes in your energy, sleep, breathing, digestion, pain, emotions, concentration, and sensitivity to everyday demands. Instead of asking only, “What is wrong with me?” also ask, “What have I lived through recently?”
- Give the activation somewhere to go
Walking, stretching, gentle movement, crying, praying, journaling, spending time in nature, talking with someone safe, and using a comfortable longer exhale may help your body begin releasing some of what it has been holding.
- Give your body cues that the immediate danger has passed
Hydration, nourishing food, warmth, sunlight, reduced stimulation, physical comfort, and a calmer environment can help create repeated experiences of safety.
- Delay unnecessary decisions
You do not need to solve every secondary problem while you are still physically and emotionally depleted. When possible, give yourself time to rest, gather information, and move out of emergency mode before making another major life decision.
- Allow recovery without making yourself earn it
Rest is not a reward you receive after handling everything perfectly. Rest is part of completing the experience.
Stress is not the sole cause of every illness or symptom. Genetics, hormones, infections, environment, medications, nutrition, and many other factors can affect health. However, stress can influence the body and may aggravate conditions that are already present.
This is not about blaming yourself for your symptoms or believing that you created an illness because you failed to manage stress correctly.
It is about becoming curious about the connections between what you have lived through, what you learned to carry, and what your body may need now.
Questions to consider:
• What did I have to hold together during that difficult time?
• What did my body begin doing during or after the experience?
• What emotions did I not have room to feel?
• Where in my life do I still believe I must be the strong one?
• What helps me feel safe, supported, and cared for?
• What might my body need from me now?
Please do not assume that every new physical symptom is caused by stress. New, severe, persistent, or worsening symptoms should be discussed with a qualified healthcare professional. Seek immediate medical attention for chest pain, severe difficulty breathing, fainting, signs of a stroke, thoughts of self-harm, or another possible emergency.
If grief, anxiety, traumatic memories, or emotional numbness are affecting your daily life, consider working with a qualified mental health professional.
If this episode speaks to you, join Freddi’s free Facebook community, Limitless Living for Women Who Are Becoming.
It is a place for honest conversations about wellness, identity, business, life transitions, and becoming the woman you are ready to be next.
Find the link in the show notes, visit fredrickadavis.com, or connect with Freddi on Facebook.
If you know a woman who has been holding everything together for everyone else, please share this episode with her.
She may need to be reminded that being strong does not mean being unaffected. She is allowed to stop, exhale, recover, and let someone hold space for her too.
Be rooted, be resilient, and be limitless.
Research referenced:
American Psychological Association: Stress Effects on the Body
https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/body
National Library of Medicine: Stress and Inflammation in Exacerbations of Asthma
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2077080/
PubMed: Childhood Adversity as a Risk Factor for Autoimmune Disease
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40320015/
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