Jgi/jamie Grill / Getty Images/Blend Images

"Highly charged women often don't sense that they're burning out," says Debbie Mandel, author of "Addicted to Stress." "They get addicted to the high of accomplishment."

By Maura Rhodes
Women's Health

It's 6 a.m., and Alena Burley's alarm clock is screaming. By 7:30, the 23-year-old from Tallahassee, Florida, has walked her dog, eaten an egg-white omelet, showered, dressed, and driven 30 minutes to her third-grade teaching job. By 4:30, her dog is back on its leash, then Alena sprints to the gym before her grad-school class, after which she rushes to her evening babysitting gig. Back home well past 10 p.m., totally beat, she grades papers and falls into bed, after setting her alarm...for 6 a.m.

"Sometimes I go so nonstop that I suddenly realize I've had to go to the bathroom for hours," says Alena. "I feel burned-out all the time, but when I look around, everyone I know is just as busy."

Of course, such a frenzied day-to-day is nothing new. Women have been run ragged for decades, especially after they entered the work force en masse, juggling career and family responsibilities. But Alena's attitude exemplifies a novel and more worrisome psychological shift: Young women have accepted exhaustion as a normal state of being. But even youth is no defense against the health hazards that come with such grueling schedules.

The Scary Reality of Distracted Driving

Resisting a rest
Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention proclaimed insufficient sleep a public health epidemic. And an American Psychological Association survey showed a large gap between the level of stress people say they experience and what they think is healthy. But another survey found that when women are tired, 80 percent are at least somewhat likely to push right on through. "We live in a culture in which people accept lagging energy as a fact of life," confirms integrative medicine specialist Frank Lipman, M.D., author of "Revive: Stop Feeling Spent and Start Living Again."

It's a mindset that starts early. "We're now primed to be fatigued from the get-go," says anesthesiologist Bradley Carpentier, M.D., who has studied causes of exhaustion. "Kids are loaded with after-school activities; high schoolers are busy getting into college, where they'll only get up earlier and stay up later. Then come careers, the iPhones and BlackBerrys, the 24-7 multitasking."

Yet many experts believe more is going on than just crammed calendars. They point to a need for validation that often drives women to never say no. "Women are caught up in the societal expectation that, in order to get ahead, a price must be paid, and that price is exhaustion," says sleep researcher Karin Olson, Ph.D., R.N., of the University of Alberta. Even those who step off the career track to start families don't necessarily slow down. They just switch lanes, trading insane office hours for marathon mommying.

Women are also more prone than men to feel guilty if they can't fit it all in and are therefore less likely to challenge exhaustion acceptance, says Carol Landau, Ph.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry and medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University. "We tell ourselves, I can't go to bed now, because X, Y, and Z aren't done perfectly" she says. Plus, social cues prime women to internalize the idea that family, and possibly friendships, are a priority, making them feel culpable for, say, spending extra hours at work.

The result? Women pile on more, accepting less rejuvenating time for themselves. "Some do feel a sense of helplessness about it," says Elizabeth Lombardo, Ph.D., author of A Happy You: Your Ultimate Prescription for Happiness. "But they feel they have no control, so they don't try to do anything about it."

5 Natural Energy Boosters

Tired without a clue
Perhaps more alarming is that some women don't even realize they've accepted exhaustion, or that they're exhausted at all. With serious fatigue comes a continuous rush of the stress hormone cortisol, which can act as a mental and physical stimulant. And just as your brain rewards you for an awesome physical experience, an orgasm, for instance, it releases feel-good 8 S chemicals after a big score in your career or personal life. Because of this, says Debbie Mandel, author of "Addicted to Stress," "highly charged women often don't sense that they're burning out. They get addicted to the high of accomplishment."

That high can override fatigue, allowing women to function while essentially flying at half-mast, says Lombardo. "You may not even realize how tired you are," she says. "You may think, Oh, this is just how I am." The problem is, no high lasts forever, and oftentimes when women come crashing down, they feel the need to build themselves up by augmenting their to-do lists, perpetuating the cycle.

"Women can get so used to feeling lousy that they don't remember what it's like to feel good," says sleep medicine specialist Katherine Sharkey, M.D., Ph.D., of Rhode Island Hospital. "And studies show people aren't good at gauging how impaired they are by exhaustion." Therein lies a big issue: Being chronically fried leads to a laundry list of physical and psychological woes.

Ragged to rejuvenated
As with most health conditions, the first step to reversing relentless fatigue is recognizing it, and recognizing that it's bad for you. "Getting too little rest is like ingesting a toxin," explains Robert J. Hedaya, M.D., founder of The National Center for Whole Psychiatry in Chevy Chase, Maryland. "There isn't a single bodily function that isn't affected. Your nervous system becomes disregulated. You can lose muscle mass. You lose sex drive."

15 Tricks to Sleep Better

"Chronic tiredness also affects your immune system, making you more susceptible to colds," adds Lombardo. "When you're sleep deprived, you're more likely to gain weight. And research has found that driving while exhausted can be as hazardous as driving drunk. Think about it: Sleep deprivation is used to torture prisoners in captivity, and yet we do it to ourselves on a regular basis."

Still not convinced it's time to own up to your exhaustion acceptance? "Many exhaustion features are also symptoms of depression," says Olson. "A cardinal sign for both is the inability to experience feeling. I worry that some women are being diagnosed with depression when really they're just worn out."

Most of the signs of exhaustion are obvious: You're likely well aware that shunning shut-eye can make you look and feel like a zombie. You'll also obviously have less energy, and you might find yourself being bitchy or overemotional, says Lombardo. Exhaustion can lead to arguments with your partner and the inability to finish projects at work. In other words, it puts you way off your game.

It's time to make chilling out a priority. "Right now, we give ourselves medals for the number of hours we spend working and not sleeping," says Lombardo. "Be proud of yourself for getting rest. Maybe that's not something you'd brag about to your friends, but when you're energized, everything changes." Start by taking these easy steps:

Choose to snooze
Most adults should log seven to nine hours of sleep every night. Hit the sheets at around the same time each evening, says Sharkey. "If you vary your bedtime, even by 30 or 60 minutes, your circadian rhythms get out of whack and you'll feel like you have jet lag every Monday morning," she says.

Eat for energy
Kicking off the day with a meal that lacks nutritional value, ahem, that sugar-packed muffin and latte, puts a dent in your metabolism and sets you up for exhaustion later, says Hedaya. Make sure your breakfast includes around 20 grams of protein and some healthy fat, both of which help keep your energy up. Try some peanut butter or a handful of almonds stirred into low-fat yogurt.

Get your head out of the game
No, meditation is not a New Agey time waster. An a.m. om session can be highly relaxing and may straighten out taxing mental disarray. "Meditating in the morning can help clear your mind so that you can then do things faster and with more focus," says Lipman. "You can actually end up with more time." Aim for 20 minutes of quiet reflection before or after breakfast.

Be crafty
Remember that achievement high? You don't need to log 18-hour days at work to find it. Outside hobbies and passions yield the same effect. "I call this creative compensation," says Mandel. "It ends up being restorative, because you are accomplishing something that's just for you." Think about what's appealing to you, cooking, writing, painting, and devote an hour or two to it each week. And try to surround yourself with pals who live more balanced lives and soak up their perspectives. Together, you can aim to ditch your exhaustion acceptance.

Related:

• The Health Threat That's Often Missed
• 5 Ways to Lower Your Health Insurance Costs
• 76 Best Things To Do For Your Body

By MyHealthNewsDaily Staff

Women with heart failure, a condition in which the heart fails to pump enough blood to meet the body's demands, may live longer than their male counterparts, a new study says.

The results are based on an analysis of 31 studies involving 28,000 men and 14,000 women with long-term (chronic) heart failure who were followed for three years.

After taking into account patients' age, men had a 31 percent higher risk of dying over the study compared with women, the researchers said.

However, the absolute difference between men and women's mortality was only slight. Over the three year period, 25.3 percent of the women and 25.7 percent of the men died.

The study is the largest to look at how gender affects risk of death for people with heart failure.

A number of factors could explain the survival advantage in women, said study researcher Manuel Martinez-Selles, of the Gregorio Marañón University Hospital in Madrid. "The female heart appears to respond to injury differently from the male heart," Martinez-Selles said.

For example, women appear to have less detrimental changes in heart function after an injury, and greater protection from irregular heartbeats, Martinez-Selles said.

The study also found that overall women were prescribed fewer recommended treatments for heart failure than men, including angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) and beta blockers.

• 6 Easy Ways to Eat More Fruits and Vegetables
• 8 Tips for Healthy Aging
• Beyond Vegetables and Exercise: 5 Surprising Ways to Be Heart Healthy

The number of pregnancy discrimination charges increased about 15 percent in the last 10 years to 5,797 last year.

It’s hard to imagine we still have to tell employers this today, but here goes: Pregnancy discrimination is illegal.

While it may sound obvious to some, blatant pregnancy bias is still alive and well in the workplace. A pregnant woman who applied for a job at a Subway franchise in Phoenix was told by a manager “we can’t hire you because you’re pregnant.” Last month, she won punitive damages against the employer.

It’s just one example of the types of flagrant pregnancy discrimination that the federal government is trying to stop.

“A few employers have forgotten, or never learned, that it’s against the law to discriminate against women because of pregnancy,” David Lopez, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's general counsel, said during a public meeting before the EEOC commissioners Wednesday.

It’s unlawful, he stressed, to deprive a pregnant woman "the opportunity to sustain herself or her family based on stereotypical assumptions” that she won’t be as dedicated to her employers as a man or a woman who isn't pregnant.

The number of pregnancy discrimination charges increased about 15 percent in the last 10 years to 5,797 last year. That's down slightly from 2010's total claims of 6,119, according to the EEOC.

While the EEOC is doing outreach to employers so they understand the law, the agency is also using the big-stick approach.

The EEOC has increased the number of cases it has filed against employers when it comes to pregnancy bias, Lopez said, reaching 20 cases last year, inching up from 19 in 2010.

He pointed to a $1.64 million settlement reached with Akal Security Inc., the largest provider of contract security services to the federal government, in 2010. The agency claimed Akal had a national policy “of forcing its pregnant employees, working as contract security guards on U.S. Army bases, to take leave and discharging them because of pregnancy.”

Such conduct, the agency maintained, violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which prohibits gender discrimination in employment, including pregnancy discrimination.

This type of bias can hit low-wage workingwomen the hardest, said Sharon Terman, senior staff attorney in the gender equity program at The Legal Aid Society Employment Law Center, who spoke at the EEOC event.

“We’ve heard from many women who were fired immediately upon announcing their pregnancy and whose employers explicitly told them the pregnancy was the reason,” she explained.

Low-income women who become pregnant, she continued, are routinely denied minor workplace accommodations that would help them continue working. A common example of accommodations would be allowing a worker to sit on a stool instead of standing all day, or letting her carry a water bottle.

She offered one case of a pregnant janitor who was fired via text message by her boss after she told him her obstetrician was late for her appointment.

Many poorer workers also don’t have paid sick days, she pointed out. The United States is one of the only industrialized nations that does not mandate paid sick days for employees. While some states have passed laws requiring some paid sick time, the majority of workers nationally are not covered by such legislation.

Although many employers have anti-discrimination policies, it still occurs. Employment attorney Sara Begley said, “Unenlightened managers who are simply focused on getting the job done may violate a pregnant employee's protected rights by taking adverse action for taking maternity leave, not provide salary increases or bonuses to employees on leave, assume an employee will not return post leave and transfer her duties to another employee, assume an employee will be on Mommy Track post maternity leave."

Such outdated assumptions, she added, “can and must be remedied by training and enforcement of applicable policies."

The biggest “knowledge gap” when it comes to the law, she added, appears to be with smaller firms who just don’t have adequate training.  

While reaching out and educating employers is important, said EEOC Commissioner Stuart Ishimaru, he shared his frustration that so little has changed in the 35 years since the Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed.

“Why have we missed the boat?” he asked the panelists assembled at the hearing. Why, he added, does pregnancy bias persist? “It’s a puzzle to me.”

Judy Lichtman, senior advisor to the National Partnership for Women and Families, who spoke at the hearing, said it was all about long-standing stereotypes, and not just regarding pregnancy but for caregiving too. Our society doesn’t value people with family responsibilities, she said. “What are our real obligations to change an engrained paradigm?” 

By Rachel Rettner
MyHealthNewsDaily

If men and women at times seem to be from different planets, it may be because there are large differences in their personalities, a new study suggests.

The results show that about 18 percent of women share similar personalities with men, and 18 percent of men share similar personalities with women. But the majority of women have personality traits that are quite distinct from those of men, and vice versa, the researchers say.

Men tend to be more dominant (forceful and aggressive) and emotionally stable, while women tend to be more sensitive, warm (attentive to others) and apprehensive, the study found.

"Psychologically, men and women are almost a different species," said study researcher Paul Irwing, of the University of Manchester, in the United Kingdom.

The new findings may explain why some careers are dominated by men (such as engineering) and others by women (such as psychological sciences), Irwing said.

"People self-select in terms of their personality… and what they think is going to be suitable in terms of the fit," for their career, Irwing said.

However, the paper, published today (Jan. 4) in the journal PLoS ONE, has drawn criticism from others in the field who argue the methods the researchers used for computing their results are flawed, and that men and women are not so dissimilar after all.

Irwing and colleagues analyzed information from more than 10,000 people in the United States between the ages of 15 and 92 who took a personality test. The tests were designed to measure 15 personality facets, including warmth, emotional stability, dominance, liveliness, social boldness, sensitivity and openness to change.

The researchers then combined the scores on these personality facets to compute what they call the "global difference" in personality between men and women. The "global difference," is essentially a sum of all the differences.

Previous studies have underestimated how much the sexes actually differ because they have instead computed the average score, said study researcher Marco Del Giudice, of the University of Turin in Italy.

But the findings counter the prevailing view among psychologists that, on the whole, men and women are more similar than they are different, in a number of ways, including personality traits.

Janet Shibley Hyde, a professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Wisconsin who published a paper in 2005 that was influential in contributing to this hypothesis, said the new study does not overturn this view.

For starters, the men and women in the study assessed their own personality traits. People may be inclined to rate themselves in a way that conforms with gender stereotypes, Hyde said. "It's not very manly to say that you're sensitive," she said.

Hyde also said using the 15 personality facets to compute a "global difference" gives you a value that doesn't have any actual meaning.

"It's really uninterpretable, it doesn't mean anything," Hyde said.

In addition, the way the researchers crunched their numbers biases their results, because their method maximizes the differences between males and females, Hyde said.

Patrick Ian Armstrong, a professor of psychology at Iowa State University, agreed with Hyde's assessment. Armstrong pointed out that the "global difference" value will actually get bigger the more personality factors the researchers consider (so analyzing 15 factors will show a greater difference than analyzing five factors.)

Given the issues with the study's methods, "it's not as open and shut a case as they make it out to be," Armstrong said. "The questions they're trying to answer are probably still worth asking," Armstrong said.

More from MyHealthNewsDaily:

• Hypersex to Hoarding: 7 New Psychological Disorders
• 11 Interesting Effects of Oxytocin
• Myth or Truth? 7 Ancient Health Wisdoms Explained

More from TODAY Health:

• Should you keep your New Year's diet a secret? 
• Men, women get jealous for different reasons
• Dudes say 'I love you' first, study says