Dr. Tabatha Barber describes women in the "sandwich generation"—those simultaneously caring for children (including adult children) and aging parents—and explains how these compounded caregiving responsibilities (often alongside careers) produce chronic stress that harms health via inflammation and adrenal dysfunction. She urges caregivers to prioritize rest and restorative practices (deep breathing, massages, quiet time) because unprocessed stress resurfaces and impairs sleep and overall wellbeing.
Chapters
What I see on a regular basis with my patients is women in this sandwich situation. They are, you know, raising their children. Even if your kids are grown at this point, they're still causing you a lot of emotional stress just because you worry about them as a mom, right? And then on the other side, you have your parents who are getting older, and I am seeing more and more women who are taking care of their ailing parents. It seems like the pandemic has really pushed that process of chronic disease, sped it up and caused so many new issues. And so you are self sacrificing. You are not taking care of yourself because you're taking care of your mom or your dad. While you're trying to juggle your life, you're taking care of your kids. Oh my gosh. And then some women add on a career on top of that and it's exhausting. Like your adrenal glands will shut down. So just on my soapbox for a minute, I want you guys to not underestimate or discount the major, major impact that has on your health that's driving all kinds of inflammation. So it's really important if you are one of these, to take time to rest, restore, repair. Like, you really do need to take time for deep breathing and getting away and doing nothing and getting massages and soaking in the tub and having quiet time with your brain to process everything that you're going through. Because if you don't process it, your brain will file it all away. And then it will want to process it when you try to go to bed. It will open those files at bedtime and oh, you didn't deal with this, you didn't deal with that, you didn't deal with this. And even if you figure out how to sleep through that, whether it be medicated sleep or alcohol induced sleep or whatever, like, those files in your brain still need to be dealt with. And if they're not, they will come out in other ways. So that's just my little tangent because I am frustrated, I'm really frustrated with conventional medicine right now.
