Do you have a case of the "caregiver syndrome?" You know, where you're so busy taking care of everyone else that you forget to take care of yourself?
If you answered yes, then you might be surprised to learn that this could be the root cause of your hormone woes.
That's right, according to world-renowned hormone expert, Dr. Venus Ramos, caregiver syndrome is one of the most common causes of hormone imbalances in women.
On this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, Dr. Ramos shares her insights on how caregiver syndrome can lead to hormone imbalances and what you can do to fix it.
You'll also learn:
-The three most common symptoms of caregiver syndrome
-How caregiver syndrome can lead to hormone imbalances
-The top three hormones that are most affected by caregiver syndrome
-The steps you can take to be free of caregiver syndrome and restore balance to your hormones
-Exercise regimen, and other stress-relieving techniques that can help alleviate caregiver syndrome
-Weight loss tips
-And much more!
So if you think you might be struggling with your hormones and caregiver syndrome , then tune in to this episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast. You'll walk away with the knowledge and tools you need to start feeling like yourself again.
(00:00): Dr. Ramos says, stay fit, be happy and lead with love.
(00:06): So the big question is how do women over 40, like us keep weight off, have great energy balance. Our hormones in our moods feel sexy and confident and master midlife. If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself. Again. As an OB GYN, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock, solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy. After 40 in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue. Now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results. And to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges, join me for tangible natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston Welcome to The Hormone Prescription Podcast.
(00:59): Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Thank you so much for joining me today. My guest, Dr. Venus, many of you saw on the Stop The Menopause Madness Summit, and you loved her. So I brought her on the podcast. She is an amazing woman who is a woman of many talents. Let me just say this she's very accomplished. You would never believe that she is the age that she is. She really looks like she's in her thirties and that's cuz she practices what she preaches. She has been a victim, if you will, or subject to caregiver syndrome all while being an elite fitness athlete. And she has thrived through that. Not only survived but thrived. And she's gonna talk to you about how you can start doing that yourself. Maybe you're in that sandwich generation, you've got older parents with health problems.
(01:55): You've got kids also, and that really can take a toll on your hormones and your health. If you're living it, you know what I'm talking about, or maybe you have family members who have lived it, it is a real thing. So I'll tell you about a Dr. Venus and then we'll get started. She's got some solutions for you. Dr. Venus is the biohacking and she's a board-certified physician of physical medicine and rehab. She has a thriving medical practice in California, and she's competed for 20 years as a national level fitness athlete. She's also a fitness trainer, and she's had clients ranging from single moms to professional athletes and an action film star. How exciting she's been a repeat guest on the TV series, the doctors, you might have seen her there , and she's been featured on several other shows, including NBC's today and American gladiators. And she contributes frequently to multiple health outlets, including I, her.com and oxygen magazine. She has a firsthand story of living through and thriving through caregiver syndrome. And we're gonna dive into it now. Welcome Dr. Venus, Hey,
(03:05): How are you doing?
(03:06): I'm doing great. I'm really excited to have you on today. You have such vast experience in so many areas. We had to talk about what to talk about, and I know that you'll weave all of your experience, knowledge and brilliance into the conversation, but I thought it's super important to focus on caregiver syndrome because this isn't something that I haven't ever covered in the podcast. It's part of your personal experience, and you have some great tips to help people. And so I thought we would dive into that first. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about what caregiver syndrome is and a bit about your story.
(03:51): Caregiver syndrome in general is just all of the symptoms that you experience when you have a physical, emotional and mental exhaustion from caring for somebody. Now of course, this can be caring for a loved one, or it can be caring for someone on the job for people who actually act as caregivers. A lot of times people think about caregiver syndrome being a lot of the fatigue and the overall fatigue and lethargy that you feel when you are caring for an elder. But certainly caregiver syndrome could be for new mothers who are caring for their children. So caregiver syndrome can affect pretty much anyone when they are directly involved in caring for someone else.
(04:38): Okay. And so who's mostly affected by caregiver syndrome. What happens? Why does it occur and how might someone know that they're having this?
(04:48): Well, oftentimes, especially when you're talking about caregiving for a loved one, this is something that happens because you are so intent. You are oftentimes so emotionally
involved in making sure that your loved one is being taken good care of. Oftentimes you start to neglect those very important things that you must do in order to care for yourself, you will perhaps not eat as well. You don't dedicate enough time to relaxing and getting enough sleep on your own. These are things that often may happen because you're very concerned, which it's important to do so about making sure that your loved one gets the care that you want them to have. You may be feeling very exhausted. You may be feeling very frustrated. You may start feeling that you're noticing that your clothes are fitting more tightly because you simply are putting on more weight. These are all the things that can happen. You may be more irritable. You might notice that you are starting to become more irritable with taking care of your loved one. And that's actually something that I started noticing in my own life when I started taking care of my father. And that's when I knew immediately at that particular moment in time that I needed to make a change.
(06:09): Yeah, I remember a client. I had, we were working on her health. She had all kinds of cortisol problems. Her weight was going up. She was really struggling with that. Her doctor was treating her for anxiety and depression and then she was having trouble sleeping and with her sex drive and it was just all these things. And she really was the only one taking care of her mom, even though she had siblings. And when we talked about it, she was getting so much resentment that her siblings weren't helping her at all. She was just saying that she felt so put upon and she almost had become like a martyr and used it kind of that anger and resentment. And then her mom wasn't nice to her too. So put that on top. So there was a lot of conflict there. She was struggling sticking to the things that she knew she should eat to benefit her that were nurturing versus junk food.
(07:05): And so that was one thing that we talked about and she hadn't really seen this as a syndrome of any type, but she was the only one. So when we had the conversation about, wow, this is really common. It affects a lot of women in the 40 to 60 year old range. And it affects on men as well. And one of the ways that it often shows up is that people start having health problems themselves. And they don't realize how much of a stress, particularly on their cortisol, the actual physical caregiving, the emotional caregiving, the mental, the spiritual what a toll it's taking on them until they really talk about it and unpack it. And I find that it's not necessarily a common topic of conversation. Did you feel like that when you were going through it and as if you weren't supported by the public in general, it's not a topic of conversation. People didn't know what you were going through.
(08:07): Well, I thought for myself, I felt myself slipping into this hole or falling into it and staying there of apathy where I really didn't care about myself or my help. And I just kind of stayed in this pit. And for me it was almost like there was an element of shame to it as well, because this happened to me and my family because my father had a stroke as a rehab physician. This happens to be one of my specialties caring for, for stroke patients and making sure that their families are educated in what's involved in caring for a loved one who has stroke. So this is something that I specialize in and when it happens in my own family and I find myself very protective of my father, knowing that I know how things are supposed to go. So this is how it's going to go.
(09:03): And I need to watch to make sure that everything is going the right way. I became very involved in making sure he had the best perfect caregiving after his stroke. And of course, I'm the only one who can give that, right? Because I'm the doctor <laugh>, I should be able to do this and no one else can do this. Only you Venus <laugh> only you only me and being a fitness competitor as well. I had done this actually almost 20 years. I knew about nutrition. I knew about training. I knew how to stick to any nutrition and exercise program, despite whatever kind of crazy schedule I had, cuz I'd been doing this for 20 years. So me thinking I was the authority in taking care of a stroke patient and the authority in staying fit and healthy, I should be able to handle this no problem, but very quickly I began to just forget about myself because the work of maintaining my medical practice and making sure that my father was getting the perfect care from me was just too much for me to also squeeze in all of that nutrition and exercise stuff that I knew about as well.
(10:15): So that's where it started to become the caregiver syndrome, where I started neglecting some of my nutrition. I started neglecting the exercise that had become such a habit in my life. It was no longer a habit because my whole life kind of got flipped upside down into adding this whole other person that I was taking care of as perfectly as possible because I'm supposed to be the expert. So there was a, a bit of shame on my part in accepting the fact that this is where I had slipped to and fall into because I had held myself to a, a certain standard. So for me there was shame involved. But the thing that turned it around was that I was so tired. I was so exhausted. I had started gaining weight. I was sitting on the couch for just a little bit of a breather.
(11:07): When I heard my father ring the bell that calls for help whenever he needed something. And that bell triggered such a feeling of anger and frustration in me. And as I walked up towards his door, his bedroom door to take care of whatever he might need. I realized that there was this tension in my face that there was anger in my heart. And I realized I did not wanna enter that room, looking that way, feeling that way. Cuz I knew that was something he would certainly be able to sense and I never wanted him to feel like he was a burden to me. And that's when I realized I needed to do something to take better care of myself. So I didn't have those feelings. I didn't wanna feel frustrated, irritated, angry, or looked that way either.
(11:56): You know, I love that. And I think that sometimes what might be part of the difficulty with caregiver syndrome is that children and their parents can be, haven't worked through any conflict that they've had throughout their lives, that this situation could escalate it. And so I always encourage people in that situation to unpack any unresolved issues to iron them out so that they can be there for their loved one from a place of love and from a place of being grateful to have the opportunity to provide care in that way. This was part of my client's story. When we talked about it, she had a whole lot of unresolved resentment towards her mom. And so that was getting heaped on top of the fact that she really did come from a good place. She wanted to be there for her mom and she had all these unresolved issues. So when you take that and then the burden of having to spend so much time and energy every day, it really did get to a place where she was resentful of her mom every day. So was that the breaking point for you where you decided I have to do something different?
(