It has been only in recent years that research organizations have begun to pay more intention to health issues in women, but women have known all along that being a woman can be stressful — biologically speaking and, certainly, culturally speaking as well.

Most of us have an easier time, physically, than our grandmothers and great grandmothers. For our grandmothers, taking care of a home, cleaning, cooking food, and washing clothes were incredibly labor-intensive. Of course, now, we've got automation to help us with many of the household chores. In addition, it has become socially acceptable as well as expected that men will help out at home. So, what are we stressed about?

Women may not have to do the laundry by hand anymore, but we've got plenty of other things to take up that saved time. We've got jobs, often impossibly demanding jobs. We've got financial pressure, relationship pressure, pressure to look good no matter what our age, pressure to be in shape, in charge, in control — pressure to be all that women have always been and more. Many of us are also juggling houses, spouses, and children.

If we've left off any of the “requisite” parts — if we aren't married, didn't have children, decided not to work outside the home — we are bombarded with criticism. Sometimes, the criticism comes from within, in the form of worry, anxiety, panic, guilt, and fear. If the world doesn't expect us to do it all, we expect it of ourselves.

On top of everything else, women go through several intense hormonal changes during their lives and hormonal fluctuations each month. These hormonal fluctuations can compound the feeling of stress, and stress can, conversely, affect a woman's hormonal levels. So, what's a stressed-out woman to do? First, let's look at what we're dealing with.