If you have been living with high levels of stress for a long period of time and feel exhausted, wired, or unlike yourself, there is a reason this is happening.

Stress doesn’t just affect your mood. It affects your nervous system, your hormones, and how resilient your body feels day to day. For many women, especially in their late 30s, 40s, and beyond, chronic stress becomes the background that shapes energy, sleep, motivation, and overall hormone health.

Stress Then Versus Stress Now

Thousands of years ago, stress was short lived and intense. Humans dealt with survival based stressors like extreme weather, food scarcity, or physical danger. Once the threat passed, the body returned to rest and recovery.

Modern stress looks very different. Deadlines, overflowing to do lists, constant notifications, parenting demands, and work pressures create moderate to high stress that lasts for months or years. The challenge is that our brains have not adapted to this kind of stress. This creates what is known as an evolutionary mismatch.

Your nervous system still responds to modern stress as if you are being chased by a lion.

Stress Is Not the Enemy

Stress itself is not bad. It helps us feel motivated, focused, and energized. Exercise is a form of stress. Excitement is a form of stress. Working toward a meaningful goal is a form of stress.

The issue arises when the body does not have the capacity to come back to balance. Without enough recovery, the nervous system stays activated and the body remains in a state of constant mobilization.

Over time, this lack of recovery begins to affect hormone signaling.

The Nervous System and Stress Response

The autonomic nervous system controls automatic processes like heart rate, breathing, digestion, immune function, and hormone signaling.

It has two main branches:

The sympathetic nervous system, often called fight, flight, or freeze
The parasympathetic nervous system, often called rest and digest

Most women today spend the majority of their time in a sympathetic state. This means the body is constantly preparing for action, even when the stressor is an email or a tight schedule.

When the nervous system stays activated, the body keeps allocating energy toward survival rather than repair, digestion, hormone balance, or sleep.

How Chronic Stress Changes Cortisol

Chronic stress alters the way cortisol is released through the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis, which is the body’s stress response system.

Early on, cortisol may be consistently high. This often feels like being wired, buzzy, or unable to slow down.

Over time, cortisol rhythms can reverse. Cortisol may be low in the morning and higher in the evening, leading to fatigue during the day and difficulty falling asleep at night.

Eventually, the system may downregulate altogether. Cortisol levels remain low, energy drops, motivation fades, mood declines, and the body feels heavy and exhausted. Many women describe this stage as burnout.

Why Hormone Symptoms Show Up

Hormones do not operate independently. They are constantly informed by the nervous system. When stress signals dominate, hormone balance becomes harder to maintain.

This is why women under chronic stress may experience sleep issues, cycle changes, mood shifts, low energy, weight changes, or feeling disconnected from themselves.

These symptoms are signals.

Building Nervous System Resilience

Supporting your nervous system does not require long meditations or dramatic lifestyle changes. What matters most is consistency and frequency.

Small moments of releasing tension throughout the day add up. This might include taking a few deep breaths before meals, sitting down to eat, pausing in your car before walking into your next commitment, or spending a few minutes with your legs up the wall in the evening.

Enjoyable activities like walking, gardening, writing, or creative hobbies can also support nervous system regulation. These micro moments help your body come back to a place of balance and resilience.

Understanding Comes First

The most important first step is understanding what is happening in your body. When you can name the pattern, you can support it more effectively.

If you want help understanding how stress is affecting your hormones, I invite you to take my free quiz to find out how much stress is affecting your hormones. You can find it for free at rachelmark.ca/quiz. 

Your body is working hard to protect you. With the right support, it can feel steadier again.