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Why You Rage: The Biology of Mom Burnout · Arise Women of God

• 0:00
  Mamas, have you ever found yourself screaming over spilled milk and then retreating to your bedroom to cry and ask yourself, who is this angry woman?
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  And where did the real me go?
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  What if I told you that your mom rage isn't a character flaw, but actually a biological crash?
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  Stay tuned and we'll explore this together.
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  Ordinary women Extraordinary Faith Walking with Christ We Arise God strong.
• 0:35
  Hello and welcome back to the Arise Women of God podcast.
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  I'm your host, Tamara K.
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  Anderson, and as I was preparing to talk more about mom burnout today, God very specifically whispered that I needed to tell this part of my story for the very first time.
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  First time, we talk a lot about spiritual strength on this podcast, but today we're going to talk about our physical bodies as women.
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  If you're walking through your days exhausted, raging at the slightest inconvenience, and feeling completely out of balance, you're not alone.
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  But here's a key I want to share with you.
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  The adversary at this point wants you to believe that you are failing as a Christian mother.
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  He wants you to believe it's a spiritual defect.
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  But we are going to debunk that myth today, and I'm going to teach you exactly why women crash and then rage.
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  Here's our roadmap for today's episode.
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  First, I'm going to get pretty raw and vulnerable and share my own story of hitting rock bottom as an exhausted young moment.
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  Second, we're going to break down the science of depleted mother syndrome, specifically something called the cortisol steal in simple terms, so you understand what is happening under your skin.
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  And third, we're going to look at the practical medical and spiritual steps you can take to stop this cycle, balance your hormones and get your peace back.
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  To understand this, I have to take you back to young mama Tamara.
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  I had four young children, ages 7, 6, 2 and a newborn.
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  And my oldest son at the time was the only one who could communicate with me verbally because my next two sons had autism.
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  Due to the autism, we dealt with severe sleep issues.
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  Them having a hard time falling asleep and then staying asleep.
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  Add in communication, struggles, potty training, challenges, tantrums, and them constantly running towards danger.
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  And I.
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  I was exhausted to a bone weary level of tiredness.
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  My life was chronic stress.
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  I was navigating the intense daily demands of raising my kids, managing a home, trying to keep everything afloat.
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  Maybe from the outside I was holding it together, but on the inside, my tank was at absolute zero.
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  I was raging at things that shouldn't have mattered.
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  My emotions were entirely out of balance.
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  And the guilt that followed those moments of anger, well ladies, that was crushing.
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  I had moments when I felt so broken that I just wept on my knees.
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  I poured out all my exhaustion, all my woes, all my challenges to God.
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  And I cried out for him to forgive me for my short temper because I had nothing left.
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  And I asked him, begged him, please help me.
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  Well ladies, God is so merciful.
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  He didn't give me a lecture on patience.
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  He didn't tell me to read my scriptures more.
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  Instead, he answered that prayer by guiding me to the right people.
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  He helped me meet doctors, pharmacists and clinical guides who led me on a path back towards health and balance.
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  What they taught me about my own feminine body completely blew my mind and actually removed that heavy cloak of shame that I had been carrying around.
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  Let me explain the biological part of Depleted mother syndrome in everyday terms to help you see it as well.
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  When you're living in chronic stress, managing meltdowns, losing sleep, anticipating everyone's needs, your brain tells your adrenal glands that you are in a life or death survival situation.
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  To help you survive, your body constantly pumps out adrenaline and cortisol, which are stress hormones.
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  But here's the catch.
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  Your body only has a limited amount of raw materials to make its hormones.
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  In a woman's body, there is a delicate balance.
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  The exact same raw material used to make your survival hormone or stress hormone cortisol, is also used to make your calming reproductive hormone, progesterone.
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  When you're trapped in chronic stress, your body decides that stress surviving the day is more important than keeping you calm.
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  So it performs what doctors call the cortisol steal.
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  It literally steals the resources meant for your progesterone to manufacture more cortisol.
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  Your cortisol then skyrockets and your progesterone plummets.
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  Why does this matter?
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  You may be asking because progesterone is is nature's anti anxiety medicine.
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  In your brain, progesterone activates something called gaba.
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  Think of GABA as the brakes on a car.
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  When you get frustrated, GABA is the braking system that slows down your nervous system and helps you respond with calm rather than exploding.
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  When chronic stress steals your progesterone, your brain literally loses its brakes.
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  You are driving a speeding downhill with no way to stop.
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  That raw, agitated, hyper vigilant state is not a lack of faith, ladies.
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  It is a neurological reality and it becomes a vicious cycle.
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  The lack of breaks makes you feel anxious and then angry.
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  That mom rage creates new stress which tells your body to pump out more cortisol, which steals more progesterone.
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  Oh, my friends.
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  When I learned this, I felt like crying with relief.
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  I wasn't crazy.
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  My body was just utterly depleted.
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  So how do we stop this cycle?
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  You have to signal safety back to your nervous system and give your body the building blocks it needs to repair the damage.
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  First, you have to look at your lifestyle to reduce the cortisol demand.
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  For me, that meant stepping back and finding ways to genuinely reduce my stress.
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  I started exercising to physically process the adrenaline.
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  I looked more closely at my diet and actually felt prompted to significantly reduce my sugar intake, which, ironically, I learned years later, helps stabilize the blood sugar crashes that trigger anxiety.
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  Second, I supported my body with targeted nutrients.
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  I worked with clinicians and began taking specific B vitamin supplements, particularly B6, which is critical for helping your brain produce that calming gaba.
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  I also started taking high quality omega 3 fish oils to reduce inflammation and support my brain health.
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  But for me, because the depletion was so deep, with over a decade of stress, lifestyle changes weren't quite enough to stop my speeding car.
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  I needed the brakes reinstalled under the care of my doctors.
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  I started taking bioidentical progesterone in my early 30s.
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  It was completely life changing.
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  Giving my body back that calming hormone it had been starved of didn't just calm me down.
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  It helped me become a better wife and a better mother.
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  It gave me the emotional buffer I needed to navigate my stressful life and my children with a regulated, peaceful spirit.
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  Now, as I approach menopause, I am in a much better balanced and healthier place because I learned how to support my own body years ago.
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  Oh, my friend, I want to be very clear.
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  This is the path God guided me to.
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  Your body is unique.
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  Be prayerful, seek the Lord and he will guide you to the specific answers, lifestyle changes and medical professionals that are right for you.
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  If you suspect your hormones have crashed and your adrenals are fatigued, it is so important to talk to a woman's health clinic that specializes in hormone replacement therapy and HRT and can help you regulate this safely.
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  I often get asked, tamara, how do I even find a good doctor who understands this?
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  Here's my favorite insider tip.
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  Call a local compounding pharmacy and ask the pharmacist which doctors in the area regularly send over prescriptions for bioidentical hormones.
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  They see the prescriptions coming in every single day, and they can usually point you directly to the clinicians who specialize in and truly balancing women's health.
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  You, my friend, do not have to live in a state of exhaustion and rage.
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  God cares about your physical body just as much as your spiritual growth.
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  Give yourself grace today.
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  Take a deep breath and start praying for the Lord to lead you to your next step of healing.
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  I've included links to several medical articles from the Cleveland Clinic, Harvard Health, and the National Institutes of Health in the Show Notes today so you can read more about the science of the cortisol steel and Mamas we are
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  just getting started.
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  In our upcoming episodes we are going to dive so much deeper into healing Depleted Mother Syndrome.
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  Next week we are covering exactly what causes a woman to be tired all the time and in the following weeks we will be talking about how to explain mom burnout to your husband and finally giving you the exact
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  steps on how to recover, fix and avoid mom burnout for good.
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  To help you get a head start, I invite you to go to the Show Notes right now and download our free Mom's Burnout Reset Guide.
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  It has all the tools, including the biology we talked about today to help you trade survival mode for Christ centered peace.
• 11:31
  Click the direct link right below this video to grab your own copy of the Mom's Burnout Reset Guide.
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  Thank you for being here with me today.
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  Keep seeking him, taking care of your beautiful body and we will see you next time on the Arise Women of God podcast.
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  If today's episode helped you feel a little closer to God, please like and subscribe.