I want to preface this with a few notes. This is the final assessment for my AB Psych course and is intended to be alongside a PowerPoint presentation (not included) — I am not a registered psychologist or therapist. I simply believe in the struggle that working mothers face and the stress that they hold. Dual roles is incredibly difficult and it’s so easy to feel like you’re drowning, so if anything, I hope this article helps get some factual information to you, mom’s, the people who need it (but simply don’t have time).
STRESS AND WORKING MOTHERS
Intervention Action Plan
Abstract
This presentation and following speaker notes will address the links found throughout health psychology between working mothers and stress conditions. More specifically, the focus of this study will be on the unpaid and invisible labour coupled with job or career responsibilities that cause insurmountable amounts of stress on women and the physiological and psychological responses to these stressors. The stressors that working mothers face are dual-role and must be balanced between work and parenthood. This is furthered by the fact that our communities are entrenched in the patriarchy and do not have the same expectations for men, nor is there much research at all regarding the stress, especially as separate facets of acute and chronic subtypes, that working mothers face.
Broken down into six sections, this presentation will clearly outline the specific stressors that working mothers face in their day to day life, alongside other contributing factors of long term chronic stress due to environmental and societal factors. As well, it will address stress responses, causes, the impact of stress on these women’s health, and coping and management techniques.
Stress
Health psychology is the study of how psychosocial and behavioural factors influence individual health and evaluate systems and interventions to reduce risk and support disease prevention, as well as improving treatment outcomes.
Stress is clinically defined as anything that seriously threatens homeostasis, which is a critical drive for a constant and stable internal environment in order to balance the ever changing external environment. The stressor is then the threat to the individual experiencing stress, whether perceived or actual, and the response to said stressor is then called the stress response, which can be psychological, physiological or a combination of the two. (Schneiderman et al, 2005).
Stress can be broken into two categories: acute stress and chronic stress. Acute stress, or episodic stress is a short lived response to a stressful, unpleasant or traumatic situation, not lasting more than a month (Rathus et al, 2023, p. 254). Chronic stress refers to the response of ongoing stressful situations and negative environmental conditions (Hammen et al, 2008).
The study of environmental psychology examines the relationships between individual and environment to better understand the causes and triggers of acute or chronic stress disorders and address them to repair problematic situations (De Young, 1999).
It is important to note that in medical research, stress is often looked at as good stress or bad stress. Good stress, also known as eustress, is defined as stress that manifests in a positive way by improving performance, driving motivation or feeling invigorating. In contrast, distress is a negative form of stress. It is defined as largely out of our control and causes anxiety, depression, concern or worry. Individuals experiencing distress are often unmotivated and generally feel unpleasant (Schenck, 2011).
The line which separates eustress and distress is different for each individual in the same ways as how each person responds to stress is specific to them and their environment. In some cases, larger amounts of stress can be more motivational than anxiety causing, due to better coping skills or less other environmental stressors. It is crucial to consider all factors of an individuals circumstances while monitoring stress.
The Stress Response and System
As previously mentioned, each individual perceives stress differently, but let’s discuss the stress response that all individuals experience immediately following a stressful situation: General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), a three stage standard stress response.
The first stage is aptly named the alarm reaction stage; this is your bodies internal alarm system which sends a signal of distress to the hypothalamus to begin the production of adrenaline and cortisol, a stress hormone (Burgess, 2023). This stage is commonly known as the Fight or Flight Response, which is the bodies immediate physiological response to a perceived threat that prepares the sympathetic nervous system to fight or flee (Rathus et al, 2023, p. 255).
A good example of this is the increased heart rate, increased perspiration and notably heightened senses that you might experience as a woman walking through a dark parking lot or alleyway, which is then furthered by the sighting of a shadowed individual. Fight or flight is generally a short term stress response, although can affect the functioning of the nervous system over an extended period of time keeping the individual in a heightened state of anxiety.
The second stage of GAS is resistance, where the body essentially attempts to respond and cancel out the physiological symptoms of the reactionary stage (fight or flight). During this stage, the parasympathetic section of the nervous system begins to reduce cortisol levels and blood pressure and heart rate levels begin to return to normal. That being said, this return to normal only happens if the stressor or threat has been removed, or is no longer active.
During the final stage of GAS, the exhaustion stage, the individual responds to their bodies inability to recover from the stressful event after repeated attempts. When the stressor remains intact, the exhaustion stage is where individuals will experience tiredness, depression, anxiety and eventually, stress related health conditions.
Pertaining to women who are both mothers and workers, we find many who are stuck in the exhaustion stage due to an ongoing number of stressors, with no ability to recover from the stress response.
“For many, daily life experiences include continuing negative environmental circumstances (chronic stress) such as poor working conditions; financial difficulties; absent, intermittently or chronically unfurling or conflictual intimate relationships with romantic partners, parents, children or friend; continuing health problems; and other ongoing burdens” (Hammen et al, 2009, Introduction section).
These ongoing negative environmental circumstances lead to the eventual exhaustion stage, and research supports that in cases where women experience chronic stress, they were more likely to experience a depressive episode following acute stressors (Hammen et al, 2009).
An interesting concept that has been researched regarding stress response is response stereotypy. Essentially, response stereotypy is a similar stress response across several types of stressors, as seen individually. This can be seen in two ways: active coping or aversive vigilance, with the latter causing more detrimental effects (Schneiderman et al, 2005).
Stressful Life Events
There are many factors in our lives that cause stress, some of which we are aware of and much that we are not. In some cases, minor stressors like daily hassles that we experience on a consistent basis can become intolerable. Daily hassles are things that are generally irritating, annoying or frustrating, such as time constraints, commuting or gender biases. While these grievances may not be burdensome on an inconsistent basis, when an individual faces them daily, they can often be more emotionally and physically damaging than other larger causes of stress. (Rathus et al, 2023, pp. 249-250).
Major life changes can also impact our stress levels, but are less consistent in terms of impact, since life changes can be both positive and negative, whereas all daily hassles are negative. For example, research found that “81% of […] stress is related to daily hassles, such as interpersonal or intrapersonal sources,” (Rathus et al, 2023, p. 249).
In some cases, following a major traumatic event or catastrophe, an individual will experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is characterized by a racing heart rate, panic attacks, crippling anxiety and/or feelings of helplessness. PTSD can be a response to a natural disaster, threat or assault, child or spousal abuse, birth trauma, etc., and may occur for a few weeks or the remainder of an individuals life. (Rathus et al, 2023, p. 250). Research shows that an estimated 40 to 70% of individuals experience a traumatic event at some point in their life (Schneiderman et al, 2005).
Burnout is an extremely common feeling among women, particularly working mothers. As previously mentioned, when the body is unable to go through and complete the phases of the general adaptation syndrome, the nervous system continues to produce stress hormones and eventually holds steady in the exhaustion phase. This is where an individual experiences the feeling of being burnt out, with feelings of apathy, emptiness and hopelessness (Burgess, 2023).
Women in particular are more likely to experience burnout due to an archaic societal expectation of the division of labour, which is seemingly unaffected by a full-time workload. Additionally, contributing factors such as postpartum anxiety or depression, isolation due to time restraints or as seen more recently, pandemic regulations, as well as relationship stressors can also exacerbate the impending burnout that working mothers can and likely will experience.
Additionally, due to a larger majority of women working in unpaid labour jobs or lower paid jobs, it means that their commute can often be longer, as well as their travel to complete care tasks such as getting groceries or attending appointments. Many women rely on public transit or travelling by foot, which places them in greater danger of being physically assaulted or targeted for crimes, increasing stress (Criado Perez, 2019).
Stress and It’s Impact on Health
One of the main impacts of stress, chronic or acute, on our health as discussed in the article by Hammen et al (2009) is major depressive episodes (MDE). Their research emphasizes that high levels of stress is greatly associated with a higher likelihood of major depression, with acute stress shockingly causing more devastating effects than chronic stress.
While acute stress is more problematic, the probability of it becoming depression is partially reliant on the background of chronic stress. The two compound, and where we find women with high levels of chronic stress, we see greater instances of organic acute stressors as well as cases of acute stressors that are partially or entirely caused by them; this occurrence is known as stress generation. (Hammen et al, 2009). Generally speaking, if a woman is enduring a high amount of chronic stress due to external causes and they are also experiencing several acute stressors, they are far more likely to develop MDE. This is furthered by an individuals genetic vulnerability to mood disorders.
Additionally, stress impacts the body in several considerable ways. Research shows that stress actually acts as an immunosuppressant, triggering our bodies to release steroids to reduce inflammation. While this helps momentarily, over an extended period of time our immune function decreases along with our ability to form antibodies, making us more vulnerable to infections and viruses.
Chronic and acute stress can also affect our likelihood of developing a number of other diseases. When an individual is stressed, they are more likely to turn to mechanisms such as smoking, drinking, casual sex or recreational drugs, which in turn make them more at risk for developing coronary heart disease (CHD), which effects men and women equally.
In addition to CHD, chronic stress can lead to a sustained increase in blood pressure, forcing the heart to work harder and can eventually cause hypertrophy of the left ventricle, damaged arteries and plaque formation. This maladaptive pattern also leads to stress response stereotypy, mentioned earlier, which ensures that future stress responses follow the same pattern of vascular response, therefor worsening it’s effects (Schneiderman et al, 2005).
Due to both the decreased immune system function and increased risk factors associated with high levels of stress, there is an increased risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. HIV increases the risk of developing cancer and severe infections, and with a weakened immune system more quickly progresses to AIDS (Rathus et al, 2023, pp. 256-265). This progression was escalated more so with multiple stressors, coping mechanisms including the use of denial and poor social supports (Schneiderman et al, 2005).
Interestingly, chronic stress and acute stress has been linked to what’s known as somatoform disorders, which is the belief or perception that an individual has a physical abnormality or disease, when in reality, there is nothing abnormal about them. Researchers believe that in cases related to stress induced anxiety disorders, individuals are hyper aware of bodily sensations associated with their anxiety and mistake them for grave illnesses (Rathus et al, 2023, p. 342).
Lastly, and more closely pertaining to women in motherhood, high loads of stress can lead to lack of appetite or stress-induced insomnia, both detrimental to mental health. Coupled with motherhood and it’s time-related struggles to feed oneself and responsibilities to infants night time needs, these effects are felt two-fold.
Coping with Stress
Effectively coping with stress can be difficult task, as each individual experiences different stressors and reactions to those stressors. Essentially, coping is defined as an individuals efforts to manage requests or demands that exceed their emotional or physical resources (Dixon, 2022). There are endless coping mechanisms, but they are commonly grouped into two sub-sections: problem-focused and emotion-focused.
The goal of problem-focused coping is to change or eliminate the cause of stress, which in turn would reduce the overall stress an individual experiences (Dixon, 2022). A good example of this would be creating a basket system in your closet to reduce how many clothes you need to fold. On laundry day, all you need to do is wash, dry and throw it in the baskets with the possible exception of shirts or wrinkle-susceptible items.
In contrast, emotion-focused coping is aimed at trying to reduce, eliminate or learn to tolerate your emotional response to a stressor (Dixon, 2022). A good example of this would be allowing yourself to feel your anger, frustration, or to cry. Additionally, one might withdraw, or seek emotional support, seemingly accepting that the problem will continue to exist and attempting to come to terms with that idea.
Shockingly, research suggests that individuals who respond with emotion-focused coping are at a much higher risk for stress-related illnesses and mental health disorders. Individuals who address problems through their coping mechanisms show increased mental health and consistently lower levels of stress (Dixon, 2022).
Anticipatory coping is another common coping strategy which is seen in cases where an individual becomes aware that a future stressor is unavoidable (Neupert and Bellingtier, 2019). This is a common coping mechanism in mothers preparing to return to work, as they struggle to understand how they will be able to handle the significant time constraints of both motherhood and working their job, coupled with an expectation by society to be outstanding at both.
Genetic inheritance plays an interesting role in our abilities to cope with stress, beginning in motherhood. Research in rats suggests that offspring of nurturing mothers experience long term effects on positive serotonin levels, which results in improved glucocorticoid feedback – improved stress response. Additionally, rats who received a high level of nurturing become mothers who continue to nurture their offspring well, producing offspring with improved glucocorticoid feedback. This evidence shows that in cases where nurturing maternal care was increased, the offspring exhibit lower anxiety rates and become less stressed mothers (Schneiderman et al, 2005).
Assuming these results transfer to humans, this research suggests that when mothers address their stress load and stress response in a healthy manner, they are able to break cycles of generational mental health dysfunction and hereditary disease, as well as effectively teach their offspring to do the same in the future.
Stress Management
There are a few different avenues for stress management, with many focusing only on disease and disorders that are caused by stress. In some cases, pharmaceutical treatment is recommended, while in others, psychotherapy is preferred. That being said, in most cases, although disorder dependent, psychopharmcotherapy is the best option.
For the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is effective in treatment, as well as pharmaceutical antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. This is especially effective when comorbid with MDE, which is seen in an estimated 39% of cases (Schneiderman et al, 2005).
In terms of disease prevention, many individuals are prescribed blood pressure reducing medication or cholesterol controlling medication to prevent the negative consequences of chronic stress from affecting the heart and arteries. Another option for prevention is exercise, although in many cases, an individual burdened with chronic stress may have severe time constraints and cannot afford the time to go to the gym for a workout, or have suitable childcare to do so.
The largest struggle with medical stress management is that it doesn’t address the main problem, which is the actual stress load that an individual must handle. This is clearly not the case in individuals experiencing PTSD, but in many cases an individual cannot simply cut out responsibilities to reduce their stress load.
In terms of motherhood, following maternity leave, women are often saddled with the majority of care tasks due to time restraints, financial restraints, gender stereotypes, lack of education for the secondary parent, or a complete lack of secondary parent. A working mother simply cannot return home after work and decide not to complete care tasks for her children. This makes it nearly impossible to lessen her stress without neglecting either herself, her home or her children.
With these restrictions in mind, it is important to explore realistic options for stress management that working mothers are actually capable of including into their day to day routine. First and foremost, it is crucial to set boundaries for yourself. Societal expectations on women assume that we will say yes to a task, so not to displease the asker – say no. Set healthy boundaries on the amount of work that you can assume and hold yourself accountable to them.
Where possible, reach out for social support. This may be in the form of surrounding family, friend networks, work colleagues, parent groups, childcare, etc. In cases where support is limited, community care networks can usually recommend or offer relatively inexpensive or free resources such as parenting groups or support groups. It may also be beneficial to work out a partnership with other working mothers to share resources. In any case, it is important to ensure that when reaching for support, you do not cross your personal boundaries of care or treatment; working mothers should not get a break at the expense of their own mental health due to family abuse or poor friendships.
Relaxation, meditation and exercise are all very beneficial in dealing with stress, but often are limited due to the aforementioned time constraints. When possible, it makes a difference to practice these skills even in short intervals of 10 to 15 minutes. Additionally, it may be advantageous to practice deep breathing techniques, also known as diaphragmatic breathing in short intervals through the day as stress becomes more intense. Research shows that deep breathing amplifies blood oxygen levels, massages inner organs and stimulates the vagus nerve, all working to reduce stress, anxiety or negative mood across many situations (Toussaint et al, 2021). This technique can be practiced in many times through an individuals day, particularity in moments of motherhood that are increasingly frustrating with small children.
Ideally, the biggest major contributor to stress management is just simply doing less. It may seem as though this is impossible, but through the infrastructure of organization and minimizing, doing less is the most effective way of reducing chronic stress. This can look like meal prepping, ordering ready-to-cook meal kits, reducing children’s toys, capsule wardrobes, declutterring, ect. If there is a particular area of your home or life causing significant distress, it is crucial in terms of reducing chronic stress to simplify. That being said, this first step to can often be overwhelming, so set small goals reach for support in any way you can.
Conclusion
The effects of stress are evident. Chronic stress amplifies acute stressors, and stressed mothers will raise anxious offspring. It is crucial that women who are both mothers and workers find a healthy balance to rectify their dysfunctional generalized adaptation syndrome and eventually lessen the negative health benefits caused by stress.
While difficult, through social supports, mental and physical health practices and minimization, there is a path for successful stress responses and healthy boundary setting.
With love,
Erin
References
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