62. Your Body Knows Best: How Stress Impacts Memory and Why We Should Listen to Our Bodies

This episode is a compassionate call to notice the red flags our bodies raise, recognize our limitations, and honor our needs.Many women in perimenopause and menopause experience brain fog and memory loss, but this is seldom talked about openly. Drawing from my own recent experiences, and with support from Dr. Gabor Maté's book When the Body Says No, we explore the ways our bodies communicate distress, often through symptoms we might overlook—like memory lapses, mental fatigue, or even physical illness.

Key Topics:

• The impact of chronic stress on mental faculties and overall wellbeing.
• How small and significant stresses accumulate, often unnoticed, shaping who we become.
• Practical insights on tuning in to bodily signals and making space for rest and recalibration.
• Affirmations that remind us of our worth beyond productivity or societal expectations.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the fast pace of life, battling stress, or noticing changes in your mental clarity, this episode offers permission to pause, breathe, and reconnect with what truly matters. We close with a powerful affirmation to guide you on this journey: "I am valued, accepted, and loved as I am. It is safe to be me."

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This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm Serena Loh.
If you're used to hearing thatintroverts are shy, anxious,
antisocial and lack goodcommunication and leadership
skills, then this podcast is foryou.
You're about to fall in lovewith the calm, introspective and
profound person that you are.
Discover what's fun, unique andpowerful about being an

(00:22):
introvert, and how to make theelegant transition from quiet
achiever to quiet warrior inyour life and work anytime you
want, in more ways than youimagined possible.
Welcome.
Welcome to another episode ofthe Quiet Warrior podcast.
Today's episode is a little bitdifferent because I'm not

(00:44):
interviewing anyone.
I'm reflecting, and this is notso much to do with introverts
and highly sensitive people, butmore to do with that aspect of
the Quiet Warriors journey, whenyou start to lose control over
parts of your life that youalways took for granted you

(01:04):
would have.
So let me give you some context.
This morning I drove my childto school for a VCE exam, and
this is a road that we havetaken many, many times.
I know it by heart.
I don't need the Google Maps orthe GPS, but as I was driving
along this familiar road, itsuddenly became unfamiliar to me

(01:28):
.
It was like something wasclouding my brain and I couldn't
tell where I was and what I wasdoing there.
So, as you can imagine, whenyou are in that kind of a
situation and you have todeliver somebody somewhere, you
have to be somewhere at acertain time.
That is very alarming.
There was no time to stop andrecalibrate.

(01:50):
I simply asked my child is thisthe route we usually take?
And she had no idea.
It turned out it was the rightroad after all.
A few seconds later, I was ableto recalibrate myself and
reassure myself that I wasindeed on the right road.
But that tiny episode shook meand though I was able to get to

(02:13):
school safely, I had anotherepisode on the way back.
It's a 45-minute journey eachway, with a lot of it being on
the highway very straight road,nothing to look at, no markers,
not much of a landscape.
I know there is a phrase for it, called highway hypnosis, and
this is perhaps a little bitlike that, but a lot worse.

(02:36):
It's like there is a gap inyour brain where you should be
able to be fully alert, able tothink clearly, able to feel a
momentary panic, for instancewhen another car comes too close
, or react to road conditions,and that capacity was just not

(02:57):
there.
I was driving like a zombie.
Not that I know what that feelslike, but it certainly felt
like only half my brain waspresent.
And I have to say I don't likethis feeling.
I don't like this loss ofcontrol over my brain and over
my ability to be a reliabledriver.

(03:17):
It affects my identity in avery deep way and my identity
being someone that others canrely on, that my children can
count on if they need a ridesomewhere and for me to get
safely around.
It makes me think how heavilyhave I been using my brain all

(03:38):
these decades that it is nowprotesting.
I'm currently reading this bookcalled when the Body Says no the
Cost of Hidden Stress, by DrGabor Mate, and it has been very
illuminating, also veryhumbling, to read stories of
people whose bodies just gave up, refused to cooperate, set off

(04:00):
the alarm system in a veryfrightening way life and death
situations, total loss ofcapacity in some cases.
And what is the body trying totell us?
It is trying to tell us that itwants our attention.
It is time for us to payattention to the red flags it
has been giving us over theyears and a lot of time.

(04:22):
We ignore these red flags untilsomething serious happens, but
on a day-to-day basis we may sayI can handle this, this is not
a big thing.
Let me just finish this pieceof work.
Let me just wait till mychildren grow up and finish
school.
Let me wait till I retire.
Let me wait till a better timewhen I don't have so much stress

(04:44):
.
And what I'm learning from thisbook is that chronic stress,
stress that is beyond the body'scapacity to cope and beyond the
brain's capacity to cope thisis at the root of many diseases.
It's very much about how weperceive our environment, how we
interact with it, how weinteract with our family of

(05:05):
origin, the experiences we hadgrowing up.
And this is not necessarilyabout trauma with a big T, about
specific incidents that havehappened to us.
It's also about all the small Ttraumas that even
well-intentioned parents canperpetuate.

(05:25):
And I find it in a sensereassuring as a parent to know
that I too can make thosemistakes, that none of us is
perfect.
As parents, we never know howexactly to work with the
children that we are given.
We never know how exactly towork with the children that we
are given.
Every one of them is different.
I have two, and they are bothso different in their

(05:48):
personality, in the way theyinteract, the way they think,
the way they make decisions, theway they reason, and it's been
an ongoing journey for me tounderstand them, to understand
myself and to see where I amprojecting from when I make a
comment, when I lash out, when Ilose my temper, when I'm at my

(06:08):
most patient, when I'm able tolisten calmly.
Where is all that coming from?
And so I'm busy joining thedots between who I am now and
what I experienced as a child.
It helps me, looking backwards,to be aware of what has got me
here and why I am the way I am,and what changes I might need to

(06:32):
make if I want a different kindof relationship with my
children and if I want mychildren to grow up to be a
different kind of human being.

(06:53):
And so, in this season oftransition, with both children
now having finished high schooland also with my health
challenges, it's an opportunityfor me to ask myself some deeper
questions what am I meant to bedoing, the thing that I thought
I was meant to be doing?
Am I still doing it?
Do I still want to do it?
Is it still the right path forme?

(07:15):
And if it is not, what is?
And it's being able to sit withall this uncertainty, in the
midst of all the chaos that'sswirling around in the external
environment, in my own innerthoughts, in other people's
judgment or expectations, tryingto find that peaceful place

(07:36):
where I can think calmly, wheremy emotions are regulated, where
my mind is clear, where myheart is at peace when my heart
is at peace.
That is what I'm currentlyworking on.
So if this is you also feelingthat life is too chaotic for
your comfort, things arechanging too fast.
You can't keep up, you don'tunderstand what is going on.

(08:03):
You wish someone could just sityou down or take you by the
hand and give you permission torest, to catch your breath, and
give you permission to rest, tocatch your breath, to rethink
things, to change your mind,then I give you permission to do
that today for yourself.
We never have all the answersall the time, but sometimes we
do get glimpses of what is theright thing to do next.
Our intuition tells us, ourbodies tell us, and it is

(08:27):
perhaps a misfortune of moderncivilization that we are so
wrapped up, rushing around,doing things running, trying to
juggle multiple responsibilities, trying to meet multiple
expectations, setting ourselvestoo high a bar, expecting too
much from ourselves and fromothers, that we have forgotten

(08:49):
and we have disconnected fromourselves.
We have forgotten that we arejust one entity mind, body,
spirit.
All of these have to worktogether, and so, perhaps in my
case, I have overtaxed my brainfor many years and relied too
much on it, to the exclusion ofmy other parts, and it is now

(09:11):
time for me to do some work tobring back some balance, to
bring back the re-energizing,the replenishing, the nourishing
and the nurturing of thoseparts that have been neglected,
to perhaps rely less on my brainand more on my intuition and on

(09:31):
my heart, to allow thosecomplex and difficult emotions
to rise up, so that I can sitwith them, make friends with
them, acknowledge them and allowthem to teach me.
So this is, in its own way, anexciting new season for me, way
an exciting new season for me.
I have been overly focused onthe cerebral and the
intellectual, and I've justperhaps received a reminder from

(09:55):
my body to also pay attentionto my other parts, and so I hope
for you, too, that you willtake time for yourself to know
yourself better, to understandwhat makes you alive, what makes
your heart sing, and I want toread a little passage here from

(10:16):
when the Body Says no, where DrGabor Mate writes this about
Tuesdays with Morrie, the bookthat Mitch Albom wrote, and he
says here Morrie learned at ayoung age that his value
depended on his ability to servethe needs of others.
That same message, taken toheart by many people early in
life, is heavily reinforced bythe prevailing ethic in our

(10:40):
society.
All too frequently, people aregiven the sense that they are
valued only for theirutilitarian contribution and are
expendable if they lose theireconomic worth.
I think the same thing goes forus too, that in whatever season
of life we're at, andespecially as we are getting
older and our sense of oureconomic worth starts to shift,

(11:02):
it is important to stay groundedand to recognize that we are so
much more than what othersmeasure us by.
We need our own way of valuingourselves and recognizing our
own worth.
So I want to leave you with thisaffirmation I am valued,
accepted and loved.

(11:23):
As I am, it is safe to be me.
I'm valued, accepted and loved.
As I am, it is safe to be me.
See you on the next episode.
I'm so grateful that you'rehere today.
If you found this contentvaluable, please share it on

(11:44):
your social media channels andsubscribe to the show on your
favorite listening platform.
Together, we can help moreintroverts thrive.
To receive more upliftingcontent like this.
Connect with me on Instagram atSerena Lo Quiet Warrior Coach.
Thank you for sharing your timeand your energy with me.
See you on the next episode.