Episode 5: When Stress Starts Showing Up in Your Body

As a woman executive, you’ve probably brushed off the sleepless nights, tension headaches, or weekend dread as “just stress.” But what if those physical symptoms are your body’s way of waving a red flag? In this episode, I’m unpacking what it really means when leadership stress starts to show up in your body, and why ignoring it can quietly erode your effectiveness and well-being. We’ll talk about how hustle culture gaslights women leaders into pushing past exhaustion, the biological realities of burnout, and how to create realistic boundaries that protect both your health and your leadership.

If you’ve been telling yourself to “just push through,” this episode will help you pause, listen to your body, and lead from a place of strength, not survival.

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Transcript

Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of She Leads and Succeeds, a podcast that goes beyond surface-level leadership chatter and focuses on real talk, real strategies, and most importantly, radical, radical support. You know me, I am LaToya Jordan, and I am so thrilled to be able to bring another topic to the forefront for women executives looking to not only survive in the workplace, but really thrive. And so today, I got another topic for you that I'm excited to share. Now you know we've been on this journey of talking about pebbles that turn into boulders or red flags in the workplace that you as women executives need to pay attention to on the front end before they become a burning inferno. And we've talked about, you know, different ones. And today I want to bring one that is so common with women executives, but honestly, not often talked about at great lengths, particularly as it pertains to being a red flag.

Today, we're going to talk about when stress starts to show up in your body. Right? That's a red flag y'all. And we don't really give it the attention or the respect it's due as a red flag. So I thought we can, you know, I can offer some insight, things that I share with my clients around this because, uh, you know, it, it, it'll be a topic that is almost like a fleeting, like, Oh yeah. And you know, I've, I've had, you know, some bouts with high blood pressure recently because that, that, that, and I'm like, Can we back that up real quick? So I want to bring some of my insights to you, some research that is out there around this relative to women, and then also some tips, some tools that you're armed with what you need to do if this starts to become a pebble in your shoe. All right, so let me paint this scenario, you know, and see if this resonates. You know, you start to have sleepless nights. You start having these tension headaches.

So you have that, the famous Sunday dread that starts actually on Saturday morning. That's not really stress. It's not just stress, let me say it that way. But it's your body waving a red flag in front of you. And it's waving that red flag through these emotions. physical manifestations through these tension headaches, through inability to sleep at night, through some people even get sleep sweats in the middle of the night, lots of things. I had a client that initially came to me because she knew the signs that her body was showing around stress. And that in this new role that she was in, She had started to see those signs show up again physically. These were things that had shown up in previous roles and gotten to be so intense that she decided she needed to leave and just take a break from work because she needed to take care of her health. In that break, she realized that, yeah, it was stress-related. It was related to this job and how I was performing in that job.

The effort, the intensity, and all of that was creating stress in my body. And her body chose to kind of manifest that in a very intense physical manner that was somewhat debilitating for her. Well, fast forward, she had taken that leave from work and left industry in general and just took a sabbatical for herself. And now was in this new role, ready to start fresh and new. And over this period of time, she started to slowly see signs again physically in her body. And for her, it was a wake up call that I do not want to get back to where I was. I need help. And so that's actually how we met. That was our discovery call, was her walking me through that. And I was just so impressed that she recognized the signs and also recognized it when it was creeping back up and decided, I'm not going to do it the way I did it before. I'm actually going to get some support.

So if that's you, you're seeing that your body is just in different types of pain and stress and tension, and you're like, oh, I need to see a doctor, I need to eat more or eat less or work out more, whatever is the self-care du jour that you have, that is absolutely pertinent. But it also is a red flag about work and about how you are carrying the leadership stress that you might be experiencing as a woman executive. Your body is the first place that leadership stress shows up. Burnout is not just emotional, it's physical, y'all. And if your health is slipping, that means that your leadership is already being compromised. Because you cannot be having these health challenges, these tension headaches, not sleeping well, and still be operating at your best as a leader. Not possible. Those two things cannot live together. You might be thinking that it is. People might be used to this is how you perform.

And you know, you might be a little edgier, a little more biting in your response and stuff like that. And people think, oh, that's just her. No, that's probably you under stress and you being so tired because you're not sleeping well that you're not able to show up in the stress-free way or in a way that is a lot more healthy for you and more effective for you as a leader. You should know that stress hormones change your sleep, your digestion, and quite frankly, your decision making. So you need to pay attention when stress is mounting at such a rate that you are experiencing the physical effects of it on your body. Chronic pressure that you have at work could lead to fatigue, irritability, and honestly, one thing that we don't often talk about, it also weakens your immunity.

If you're someone that constantly gets sick, catches every cold out there or other things, you might want to pay attention to it as a red flag that your body is telling you that it is under attack by stress and that you need to do something about it. This is not about being weak. It's not about, oh, I can sleep with, I can work with less hours of sleep. This is not a weakness. This is biology. This is how your body works. And your body is trained and is created to ward off things that are set to attack it. And stress is one of those things. There's lots of, you know, lots of research around this, around burnout and all these things. So know that you, if you're feeling this, if you're like, gosh, you know, I was wondering where these tension headaches were from and I don't want to, you know, be a baby about it or whatever you might want to say. Please don't put that on yourself.

Please pay attention to the signals that your body is giving you about the load that you're carrying and how you might need to make some adjustments so that you can take care of your health first. Before anything else, you cannot lead. if you are not in a manner that you can physically handle. So I would encourage you to do a quick body audit and just scan yourself. Take a moment to just scan your body and maybe write down the three biggest ways that stress has shown up in your body recently. I think be aware of that situation. Be aware that you are now finding yourself having to have coffee in order to get out of bed, or if not, you're really sluggish, or like I said, these migraines are coming on every Saturday because you're thinking about all the work that needs to take place that week.

Just scan your body, do an audit, and just jot down for yourself how has it been showing up in your body so that you know and you can start having some awareness to what might be going on as a red flag. So yes, your body will be an important kind of alarm system to let you know when you are under stress attack and you need to pay attention to it. But another thing I want you to kind of be aware of is that this hustle culture that we kind of have glorified will gaslight you into ignoring the signs in your body. It'll make you feel like, you know, you need to push harder and that, you know, exhaustion is for the weak. And so you need to carry, you know, oh, I was up all night or oh, you know, whatever as almost like a badge of honor. And I just want to tell somebody who might be listening right now, it is not a badge of honor. In fact, it is a warning sign. If you are constantly exhausted, it is a warning sign that your body is trying to give you this red flag through your body.

And so taking what you might hear in the mainstream media, on social media, and even in our corporate culture where people try to glamorize overworking, please don't take that as something that you need to take in as truth. Because it is the opposite of truth. And quite frankly, for women leaders, there's often an added pressure because you're trying to prove you can handle it all. And as women, we typically have so much more on our shoulders besides what's going on at work. So you don't want to look weak. You don't want to look like I'm not ready for this role, or I'm not capable to do this senior role. So I'm just going to, you know. Just keep going, keep overworking myself, keep being a part of this hustle culture because that's going to show everyone that I'm ready to do it. No ma'am, no ma'am Pam. That is not how you need to show up. Ignoring the stress signals doesn't make you stronger. It actually makes you more vulnerable to the things I mentioned earlier.

It makes you more vulnerable to a weakened immune system, to chronic health issues and worse. And so don't wait for permission to slow down. Don't fall for this notion that the hustle culture is the only way to perform and to lead successfully. Don't fall for it. Instead, take a time to slow down and to take care of your body, particularly when it's calling for it. I remember some research that came into my inbox a little while ago from Harvard Business Review, and it talked about how women disproportionately shoulder the emotional labor at work. That there's all these hidden labor elements to work that women leaders disproportionately shoulder. So you're telling me that we have all the work to do as executive women for our actual, which is in our job description, We're also managing and handling the emotional labor. We also have whatever we have going on at home, and we're supposed to do that at 200%. How? Of course you're exhausted. I'm exhausted just running that list to you.

And the problem is that we feel like if we don't perform all of those at an optimal level, that it will prove to someone that we didn't deserve this seat at this moment in time. And it's just nothing further from the truth. However, because so many of us have bought into it, we don't want to be the outlier that does it. So we just keep going. Going in this notion of we have to take ourselves to the limit We gotta just keep going even if we're exhausted and I'm telling you right now that it is a fallacy and You have to take care of your body or the breakdown will really really break you down So don't don't continue to see exhaustion as a flex You don't get extra points for breaking yourself to the limit Okay, protecting your health isn't selfish, it's actually leadership. Because you're modeling to others how taking care of yourself first is critical to anything within the business walls.

And just parenthetically, I'm not talking about what might be seen as like, oh, whatever others might deem like, oh, that looks selfish. You don't need to get caught up in that. Don't get caught up in the battle of whether taking care of yourself seem selfish or entitled or whatever. If your body is shutting down, let them call you whatever they want. Take care of your body. Go to sleep. Say no to certain things on the weekends or whatever. Take vacations and unplug. Don't get caught up in what might people think or they're going to label me as X. If your body is showing you the signs that I've just described and you're worrying more about what other people are going to think about you, then there is another problem. And I want you to just pause and reflect on what matters more. Spoiler alert, it's your health.

So if you're someone that has had that feeling and worry about what others might be thinking, so you go a little bit harder, you push yourself to exhaustion or beyond, you're doing all of these things where you want people to see you just working yourself because that's kind of your hustle culture in your organization, and you want to show that you are part of that culture, Please, please, please, I want you to reflect and maybe consider where you've been applauded for overworking, where you actually were burning out. and where you might make some changes. And so an action within that is like maybe just create some non-negotiables for you, some boundaries and some times where you get to log off. Maybe it's a no-meeting lunch on Thursdays. Maybe it's I'm always going to log off at 8. I remember talking to a client recently, and I was trying to convince her you know, to create that. And at first, she was very resistant.

But then when I and I was like, it doesn't have to be, you know, five. I'm not saying you have to do the traditional hours, but create a boundary that you you commit to for yourself about when you are going to stop working. And for her, it was eight o'clock. And I was like, OK, but then if someone says you something at eight or five, you kind of got to wait until the next day. Is that is that a fair thing? Can we commit to that? She was like, yeah, putting it at eight o'clock makes me be okay with not doing that, like not answering it. If I had said five, I know I would have pushed past that. But saying eight, yeah, I really should not be working past eight. I was like, yes! So I would say, do whatever you need to do to create a boundary, a realistic boundary for you around when you will stop working, where you will take time just for you. And then hold it sacred.