We are overstressed and we're under so much physical, emotional, cognitive stress that not only is having an effect on our nervous system, but it's also having effect on our capacity to make energy at the same time.

And so the sympathetic spiral of doom is this combination of having sympathetic nervous system that's on all the time.

So your sympathetic nervous system is the one that's

supposed to be on when you're getting chased by something or something's very serious and you need to

like get out of the way or the proverbial saber tooth tiger is running after you.

But modern society doesn't really have those things anymore. All it has now is these small

but very sympathetically active things

that we're doing all the time. scrolling on our phone, going to meetings, doing the things

that we're just going, going, going, going, going. So that sympathetic nervous system is active all

the time. And we have the mitochondria, the part of our cells that make energy. That part of the

cell is very, very important. We have a huge amount of energy requirements on a day-to-day basis. We make about 150 pounds of the energy currency in our body called ATP. And if we are not meeting our energy demands, the system starts going, oh, no, I need to make more energy. You need to give me more capacity. And so the mitochondria, when they're trying to make more energy but can't start putting out signals and say, hey, we can't make enough energy, you need to rev up even more than you already are. And then you get to this place where you're revving up more, but you don't have enough capacity anymore. Your reserve is so low because you're already at this high stress level, right? And society rewards this stuff. It rewards women and men that go, go, go, go, I mean, when I was in medical school, my friends and I had shirts that said sleep is for quitters, right? I grew up in New York, the hustle, right? It's all something that people want, because that's what's acknowledged and rewarded in our society. Then as a female, I mean, you're getting toward midlife and your hormones are changing, and all of a sudden you can't meet those kinds of demands anymore because your estrogen levels are lower. Your mitochondrial function is now lower because of that. Your progesterone levels are lower. And all of a sudden, you can't sleep as well. And so you're like, why is everything kind of fallen off when I was feeling okay a couple years ago? And so the sympathetic

spiral of doom is this chronic sympathetic activation with chronic mitochondrial dysfunction that is

happening without us knowing it. And then all of a sudden we feel like the wheels have fallen off,

falling off and we don't know what to do. I don't really know how a, especially a woman, now I'm going to

speak from a women's point of view because guess what? It makes sense. Yes. I know as well. But you look at it and not only are we, I always say, I always joke that we have, you know, two jobs or two careers because we have our career and then we come home and we have our career. And then we have our kids and then we have our parents. And, you know, there's very few husbands.

I'm going to make a blanket statement, but I think most of the case, this is correct, that are thinking about their kids' dental appointments or birthday parties or what they're going to wear to school. It just doesn't happen. I'm guilty of this, too. I have four kids and, yes, my wife was full-time. And, yes. Yeah. Yeah, but yet, you know, I was like working full-time, primary breadwinner and putting on the birthday parties and, like, and-and-and-and-and, you know, and I woke up at one point, I went, I didn't cite it for this. I don't want to be, because for a while you feel really good about it, just like you said, you're like, look at all the things I can do. And I go, I don't want to do all these things. And I just wonder how many women

are like, God, you know, I'm feeling like crap, my metabolism's tanking, I feel like I'm aging faster. And it's because, and they're looking outside of all the things getting their labs done, et cetera. And a lot of this stuff, I don't know how you'd even see it on a lab test. A lot of it's going to look like it's normal. Yeah. So, I mean, how big of an issue do you think this is?

I think it's a lab test. A lot of it's going to look like it's normal, yeah.

So, I mean, how big of an issue do you think this is?

I think it's a much bigger issue than we realize. And I think, just to kind of reflect back what you said about women and responsibilities, I remember when I was in California, and I saw a billboard, and it had a father and a son. And all it said on the billboard was,

dad just show up.

That's all that dads are expected expected to do kind of, right? Like all they need to do is be there and then the women do everything else. Yeah, it's like mom, pack my lunch, get my clothes, put my party on the car. She was so pissed when she saw that sign. Yeah. And I have four kids. And so there's a lot that I do to help the kids. But you're right, birthday parties, dental appointments, the dermatologist, all that stuff is happening because my wife makes the appointments. And I just don't think about it. I always tell her it's like doing laundry. It's like I think about doing laundry, but I thought about it two weeks from now when you thought about it today. Right. And so it's like, you know, women's minds have amazing capacity overall. But what it's

...