Are You Headed for Hurried Woman Syndrome?

Dec. 10 -- Teresa Lee, a mom with three children and her own hair salon, is constantly on the go from morning until night, trying to do it all.

On a typical afternoon, the Lumberton, Texas, woman was preparing food and managing her children's schedules, but the craziness of coping with soccer practice and math homework was starting to take its toll.

"There were times that I felt like I'd get really stressed out," Lee said. "And I went to my doctor and told him 'I have a really low energy level, I don't want to work out, I get kind of grumpy.' And he said, 'Hey, I've got a name for it.'"

Her diagnosis? "Hurried woman syndrome," a newly identified condition. The doctor who coined the phrase says the condition affects an estimated 60 million women, or one out of four in the United States, between the ages of 25 and 55.

Lee's physician, Dr. Brent Bost, a private obstetrician-gynecologist in Beaumont, Texas, and the author of The Hurried Woman Syndrome, recently presented data at a medical conference showing that many doctors are finding this new syndrome in patients leading today's frenetic lifestyles. In his own 15 years as a physician, he had seen the condition many times, and that it is a form of minor depression.

"The hurried woman syndrome is the term we coin because it seems to underlie the cause of the problem, which is stress and hurry, and busy lifestyle choices that a lot of people have assumed are normal," said Bost, who trained at the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.

The syndrome often affects women juggling working outside the home and family, but single women with tough careers and stay-at-home moms can be susceptible, too, he said.

Symptoms Mimic Depression

The four major symptoms associated with the syndrome are weight gain, low sex drive, moodiness and fatigue. Over the course of time, experts believe, these symptoms can trigger changes in brain chemistry that are very similar to depression, although not as severe.