Did forgetting a dentist appointment for the first time in my life drive me crazy? Or was it the sheer panic that gripped my chest the day I realized I hadn’t managed to wash one of the kids’ uniforms for school, sending me into a ball of anxiety?
Instead of laughing at these little bumps in the road, they unexpectedly took on major concerns, snowballing down a gloomy hill into a feeling of overwhelm I had never felt before. Accustomed to being busy, managing a family of four children ages 7 to 18, writing books, editing a weekly magazine, and co-hosting a podcast, I wondered where this feeling came from. I’m an organized, multi-tasking person, but if one thing goes wrong, I’m irrationally catastrophic that the rest of my to-do list will be a disaster, too.
If this sounds familiar, you must be middle-aged too. It looks like there’s a new tribe in town: the inexplicably depressed over-40s. So what’s going on and is there a way to stop our spiraling when feeling overloaded?
First, it’s worth knowing that we can certainly place some of the blame at the feet of our overscheduled, busy modern lives. Our 40s and 50s bring extra burdens, and those in middle age are often called the backbone of society. We may face the pain of an empty nest, the stress of caring for elderly parents, serious health problems, the burden of large jobs or layoffs, divorces peaking between ages 45-49, and suicide rates among women.
That’s a lot, and according to neuroscientists, all midlife brains go through a process of restructuring, so it’s no surprise that they deal with things differently. The weight of these multiplied roles and changes in brain function mean that we need to pay more attention to ourselves as we get older, and our daily lifestyles need to change.
Psychologist Dr. I spoke to Emma Hepburn about why we lose the ability to handle stress after 40, and she told me it’s because of the huge cognitive demands we put on our already-tall brains. “Responding to the demands of midlife significantly increases our cognitive load at a time when our cognitive capacity is limited,” she says.
Leading neuroscientist Dr Lisa Mosconi, author of Menopause Brainexplains that male and female brains respond differently to midlife crisis. He says that the chronic stress that may have built up for us as a generation over the years has bankrupted our hormone production, which affects brain health, and that male and female brains are different because our hormone production is different.
“It’s a complicated time in life,” he tells me. “Tolerance to stress decreases at a time when we have more of it. This is due to changes in hormonal concentrations in the brain as we age. Higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol are not good for the brain’s gray matter.” Our gray matter is the part of our brain that we need for almost all of our bodily functions and emotions.
Why are middle-age men and women under extreme stress?
Our bodies rely on a molecule called pregnenolone to produce both our sex hormones and stress hormones. When we are under stress, the brain will steal pregnenolone from estrogen production in women in order to produce more cortisol to cope with the crisis it is facing. If we stay in stress mode for too long, our estrogen becomes even more depleted. For women, this can mean more symptoms of perimenopause (the 10 years before menopause when all our hormones fluctuate before fully separating), including increased anxiety or mental health problems.
Dr Mosconi says the impact of extreme stress in older men can be even more negative. To cope with stress, women’s brains often produce oxytocin, the feel-good hormone, which helps our brain’s gray matter provide more energy to function better.
Research shows that the presence of this calming hormone leads to “tend and befriend” behavior in women. Therefore, women under stress may be more likely to seek help from other women to relieve stress. But men do this work alone, they don’t get oxytocin, and their gray matter can be more severely affected by the extra cortisol. According to Dr Mosconi, their brains may freeze. They withdraw, their brain activity stops, their energy runs out. This means the brain gets less glucose (which fuels it) and a host of health problems can come along with mental anguish. It’s a vicious circle.
Sleep is also affected, which negatively impacts brain health and increases overall inflammation in the body, which is bad for the brain. “The brain is a complex organ,” notes Dr Mosconi. “Menopause and perimenopause are an important renewal of the female brain. “But while there are some cognitive shifts for women at this stage, the average woman’s brain still outperforms the average male brain in middle age.” This is impressive because studies around the world show that stress levels in women in midlife are consistently higher than in other age groups. This stress puts both sexes into what Dr. Hepburn calls “an exhausting state of hypervigilance.”
So what can we do about our midlife spiral?
Dr Mosconi recommends lifestyle changes such as better nutrition, drinking less or no alcohol, a look at how we digest chemical toxins at home, movement and mindfulness; Something Gen Xers still love to roll their eyes at.
“Better sleep is the most powerful thing that keeps our brains functioning well, but it can be more difficult to achieve this quickly in middle age,” says Dr Mosconi. “So I recommend starting with more daily exercise or movement to overcome cognitive decline, there is a lot of science behind this. Many pathways to the brain are activated by exercise, which promotes better blood flow. It clears the brain of toxins, reduces cortisol and stimulates brain energy, which It also makes it more efficient and reduces inflammation in the body.
“The body responds well to change, but the brain is its own show; it needs consistency to adapt and change. He is good at learning new things but not so good at changing things; The hardware of the brain is not plastic, so be patient. “It will take some time to learn how to better handle stress at this stage of life.”
However, Dr. There is good news, too, as Hepburn points out; Because once you realize you’re hypervigilant, you can develop coping strategies relatively easily.
“The middle-age brain is full of information. If you remove the threat stimulus, your brain is great at reminding you that you have all these skills to solve problems and cope well with your increased mental load. You just need to give him the space to do it.
How can you help your midlife brain overcome overwhelm?
Improve your social capital
Having a good support network is why some people can cope with the midlife brain spiral and others can’t. According to Dr. Hepburn, being able to “talk out” your problems is extremely beneficial to your brain health. One of the biggest predictors of a longer life is our social interactions with others, and connection also triggers the production of feel-good hormones that calm a spiraling brain. A US survey earlier this month showed Britons aged 46-65 were the “loneliest” group in Europe. American PsychologistResearchers report that the lack of “social safety nets” leaves us vulnerable to loneliness, which is not beneficial to brain health and perhaps leads many of us to complain about not being able to cope under this newfound pressure.
Learn self-hypnosis
Dr David Spiegel is a Stanford psychiatrist who has made it his life’s work to reduce the medicalization of mental and physical health. When I asked him about his midlife crisis, he said simple daily self-hypnosis switches the brain between alpha and theta waves, encouraging it to “hyperfocus” on one thing; for example, being calmer in certain situations.
“Increased threat arousal starts a feedback loop between the brain and body. You get tense, your brain tells you what’s wrong, then your body senses something is wrong and gets tense: We can interrupt this cycle with regular self-hypnosis and teach the brain to turn off these alarm signals. You’re telling your body to tell you that you can cope, that everything will be okay.” In her app, Reveri teaches relaxing circular breathing techniques and guided self-hypnosis for better sleep, focus, and stress relief.
Learn about MBSR (meditation and mindfulness-based stress reduction)
This area of wellbeing is often poo-pooed, but Dr Mosconi says coping strategies developed under the MSBR banner have been researched and shown to improve our quality of life as we age. Kirtan Krya is a 12-minute chanting meditation proven to reduce stress. Dr Mosconi also says MBSR research has found that when combined with cognitive therapy, it may be as effective as antidepressants in women at preventing relapses of depression. Practicing yoga for at least 12 weeks has also been shown to reduce fatigue (especially during menopause).
Plan to rest
Generation X is culturally programmed to believe that resting is lazy, but it is vital for brain health and should be programmed like everything else in our diaries. Overproductivity is an epidemic today, and if you want your brain to have more energy then you need to stop and give your brain and body a break.
What’s Wrong With Me: From Decoding to Rediscovering Lorraine Candy’s Midlife Memoirs is out in paperback
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