Embracing Strength: A Comprehensive Look at Women's Mental Health

When COVID hit, mental health started to not only become more accessible via telehealth, but also more talked about, understood, and de-stigmatized. Although going to therapy is more universal than ever before, and mental health in general is more visible than ever before, there continues to be unique challenges in women’s mental health. These challenges - from social expectations and gender norms, to hormonal fluctuations and the overwhelm of the “mental load” - deserve both attention and intention. Understanding key aspects of women’s mental health can help us to better support common struggles and nurture overall emotional wellness.

Understanding Women's Mental Health

Women's mental health encompasses both unique experiences and universal themes that highlight shared challenges, barriers, and stressors. For instance, hormonal fluctuations due to menstruation, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, and menopause can affect mood and mental well-being, while societal roles and expectations often place immense pressure on women, potentially contributing to anxiety, depression, and stress. These examples are part of a much more comprehensive list of challenges impacting women’s mental health.

Common Mental Health Challenges

1. Hormonal Influences: Hormonal changes throughout a woman’s life—such as those experienced during menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause—can impact mental health. Conditions like premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) and the range of perinatal mood disorders (including anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and PTSD during pregnancy and/or postpartum) highlight the connection between hormonal shifts, mood disorders, trauma, and anxiety.

2. Societal Pressures: Women often face societal expectations rooted in heteronormative gender roles. Oftentimes, these expectations become pressurized, contributing to patterns of perfectionism, stress, burn-out and self-doubt. The pressure to “do it all” and the fear of not measuring up can take a significant toll on women’s mental health.

3. Trauma and Abuse: Women are at a higher risk than men to experience certain forms of trauma, including sexual abuse and domestic violence. These experiences can have long-lasting effects on mental health, often necessitating specialized support and intervention.

4. Work-Life Balance: The struggle to balance professional responsibilities with personal life can create significant stress. This stress is compounded by systemic issues like inadequate parental leave and lack of workplace flexibility. Women, in particular, are more likely to talk about and experience the concept of “the mental load” - the cognitive and emotional effort involved in managing daily tasks and responsibilities - and for many, the notion of work-life balance serves as an unfair myth.

Supporting Mental Health: Strategies and Solutions

1. Seek Professional Help: Therapy (including individual, couples, and/or family) can be an invaluable resource for managing stress, overwhelm, anxiety and depression. Therapy can serve as not only a place to feel seen, heard, and validated, but also as a place to have unbiased support around struggles that are specific to women’s mental health, including tools for coping and prioritizing one’s own needs.

2. Build a Support Network: Connecting with friends, family, or support groups can offer emotional support and practical advice when these relationships are rooted in emotional safety. A strong support network services as a protector factor to feelings of isolation, often offering a sense of belonging.

3. Prioritize Self-Care: Self-care is often thrown around as a catch-all solution, and though it is neither a magic step nor is it something that takes stress away, it is a crucial component of mental wellness and stress management. Regular physical activity, balanced nutrition, adequate sleep, and relaxation techniques all contribute to overall emotional well-being. Setting healthy boundaries is also a critical form of self-care.

4. Advocate for Systemic Change: Supporting policies that promote mental health, such as accessible healthcare, paid parental leave, and workplace accommodations, can help alleviate some of the external pressures that impact women’s mental health. Women’s mental health cannot be viewed in a vacuum; it must be included in the larger picture of systems impacting women and their families.

5. Educate and Raise Awareness: Increasing awareness about women’s mental health issues can help reduce stigma and encourage individuals to seek help. Education also empowers women to recognize symptoms and access appropriate resources. This can be done at a maco-level through organizations advocating for women’s mental health, and it can also be done a micro-level by normalizing mental health care and therapy among friends and family.

Embracing Wellness

Women’s mental health is an area of mental health that requires a nuanced understanding and a compassionate approach. By acknowledging the unique challenges women face and supporting a range of strategies - from personal self-care to systemic change - we can promote emotional well-being for women through high quality mental health care and support. Nurturing mental health is not just about addressing challenges but about harnessing strength and celebrating the unique and the universal experiences of women.

Gray Therapy Group specializes in psychotherapy for women. For more information about starting therapy with Gray Therapy Group or to request a free 15-minute consultation with Marissa Gray, LCSW email marissa@graytherapygroup.com or call 847.834.9189. You can also visit our website at www.graytherapygroup.com or our Instagram page at @graytherapygroup.