Why You Still Feel Off: Hormones, Burnout & the Midlife Reset Women Need

Feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, emotionally drained, or just “off” lately? You are not alone.

In this episode of The Laundry Room Diaries, Angela McKay shares her personal journey through burnout, hormone struggles, stress, brain fog, and rebuilding her health during midlife while navigating motherhood, business, and life transitions.

This episode dives into:
– hormone health for women
– burnout recovery
– nervous system overwhelm
– gut health and stress
– wellness for busy moms
– midlife health and healing
– simple habits to support your energy naturally

Angela also shares practical steps that helped her begin feeling like herself again—without extreme routines or adding more pressure.

If you’ve been feeling disconnected from your body, exhausted from constantly pushing through, or ready for a true midlife reset, this episode is for you.

Start your free Rooted & Renewed Reset and explore more resources at:
Angela McKay Official Website

Listen to more episodes of The Laundry Room Diaries here:
The Laundry Room Diaries Podcast

Transcript

Midlife Exhaustion And The 3 A.M. Club

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Hey friend, welcome back to the laundry room diaries. Today's episode, we're talking about all things I believe women in the midlife can relate to: hormones, burnout, and those missing pieces no one likes to talk about. I don't know about you, but I've experienced it for several years, and it is a season. But I want to ask you, have you had that season? Have you are you in that season right now where you wake up tired, you're pushing through your day exhausted, and then you lay in bed at night unable to fully rest? I call that the 3 a.m. club, where we're all saying, me too, I was up all night and by 3 p.m. we wish we could take a nap, but we're moms and we can't. Well, friend, I'm gonna tell you right now, it's it's not you, you're not alone, you're not on an island. This is truly women everywhere. Um, I know for me, I was like snapping off easier. I was feeling more emotionally overwhelmed. My body was feeling very different, and I just I didn't feel motivated, to be quite honest. The things that used to get me excited just weren't really getting me the motivation I needed to push through my day. And I really started to look in the mirror and I could barely recognize myself. So I don't know if that's you, but that's where I found myself, and that's what's bringing this episode to you today. Um, it's really what's made things even harder, is as moms, we have to still function. We can't stop. We can't just take the day off and say, well, not feeling great, hormones are everywhere. We still have to show up for car line and homework and cook dinners and do laundry and and work our business or go to work and you know take care of the dogs. And you, you know the laundry list. And you know, that's what I wanted to really talk and kind of unpack with you today and hopefully just give you permission if you're in this season to to one know you're not alone, you're not off. It's it's unfortunately not talked enough, but it's very common. And it's okay. It's okay. We're gonna sit in the permission a lot in this podcast of really coming back to ourselves right where we're at today in the present and giving ourselves that that forgiveness and grace that God has taught us to have with our own hearts. Now, I don't know about you, that's that's a probably a whole nother episode, but that's what I want you to get today in this episode. So even though I was a mom and I was still running the businesses and taking care of everyone and still smiling, but internally, guys, I was depleted. And I think that's where so many of you and I sit today. We don't really put that on our highlight reel, but we're living that out right now. Women are in survival mode, but we're but no one's really truly feeling well, and so you know, I want to take you back to where it really became the neon sign in my life that something wasn't

The Airport Scare That Changed Everything

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right in my body. And it was um a year ago or thereabouts a year ago, I was getting off a flight from a business trip. I was traveling alone. Thank goodness I was homebound. So I was landing in my home airport in Indianapolis, and I, in the middle of the flight, it felt like a panic attack, but it honestly felt like a heart attack. I started to be diaphoretic. I went to the bathroom, and if you know me, that's one place on a plane. I don't ever want to have to hang out. So you knew it was probably something serious. If I said I was running to the bathroom on an airplane, and I just felt like I was gonna drop dead, to be quite honest. Not to be dramatic, but at that moment it scared the living jeebers out of me, guys, because I was alone and I'd felt like my body just like sirens going off, like something's not right. Um, they got me a wheelchair, um, and I was pushed through the airport. I called my husband up and said, Hey, when you pick me up at the curbside, it's gonna look a little different this time. I'm in a wheelchair, I'm fine, don't panic. Hello, of course he's gonna panic. Like, why is his wife in a wheelchair? Um, but I was normalizing, like, I'm fine. The reality is, friend, I was not only not fine, I was so exhausted from surviving, and I was truly just not physically well. And so heart palpitations, struggling with sleep, climbing the stairs in my house, those were hard tasks for me. But I kept talking it up to, I guess I'm 50. I guess it's just as how it is. You know, I start, I started to tell myself those those stories that we love to talk to ourselves about to normalize it so that it doesn't have to be a thing. And, you know, so what I would do is I would do what most people do. I kept trying to fix it by doing more, more caffeine, more productivity, more hustle, more pressure on myself. But eventually I realized something really important. My body wasn't falling, failing me. My body was really communicating to me. My body was screaming at me. And I think as women, we ignore those signs way too long until we find ourselves in a wheelchair at an airport thinking that we're going to drop dead of a heart attack. Now, my hope is that through this podcast, I'm gonna take you through the highs and the lows, and that hopefully someone's gonna hear this and they're not gonna have to experience what I experienced because that was a very scary moment. But it was also a very good and godly moment because it allowed me to step back and really take inventory on my

Wellness Beyond Weight And Willpower

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personal health. And so, what I've learned is one of the biggest things in this season is wellness isn't just about weight. You know, everyone's out there doing their thing, and it's always weight focused, especially for women. Um, but I want to really talk about things that are outside of that category. Things like your nervous system, your hormones, your stress levels, your gut health, your emotional health, your spiritual health. Um, everything is so connected. And I think that's really important to understand because oftentimes I know for me personally, I've gone through life and I would take a journey on I'm gonna get healthy, usually in a weight-focused moment, you know, because that's where I've battled the most with just my weight personally. And I didn't think of it as I needed spiritual alignment, I needed mental alignment, I needed gut health alignment, I needed stress-level alignment, hormone alignment, nervous alignment, um, to get the weight management alignment. Like we focus on one piece, but to understand it's all connected is super

Why Survival Mode Breaks Healing

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life-changing. And that's really where it shifted for me. You know, so for most women, we're trying to, we're really trying to heal while still living in this constant fight or flight mode. And honestly, friend, we wake up immediately, we're overstimulated. Oftentimes, I used to do it, we grab our phone right away before even before talking to our spouse, and we're scrolling social media before our feet even hit the floor. We consume caffeine before hydration, we rush through our meals, we live stressed, we multitask, and and we actually almost amplify that as a badge of honor, as busy and I'm doing all the things, and we never slow our minds down. And then I wondered why does our body feel so inflamed? Why does it feel so exhausted, anxious, and depleted? Friend, your body was never designed to live in constant survival mode. Healing is not just physical, healing is creating safety in your life. Like safety is in your routine, safety is in your nervous system, safety is in your thoughts, and safety is in slowing down. Now, you know, I think a few things I can give you today in the show to really generally help you start to rebuild your energy is kind of what I did. Um, the one thing I said, you know, how many people reach for the caffeine caffeine before anything in the in the first of their day, right? I I've never been a big coffee drinker. I had a healthy diet soda habit for decades. Um, and now I've moved to a healthier, I call it my mom juice, but but I was always grabbing the Diet Coke, the caffeine, because I thought, gosh, I gotta, I'm already tired because I didn't sleep and I didn't sleep well because I my mind goes all night and I've got a huge laundry list of things to do today. Give me that caffeine. I wish I had it in an IV form because we got things to do. And I started my morning differently when I realized my body was screaming from

A Slower Morning That Restores Energy

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my caffeine habit. I started my morning slowly. Now that means for some of us, we have to get up earlier. You know, if you're like, oh Angela, I already get up and I've got the kids and stuff. You have to give yourself that space in the morning before you give yourself to anyone else. So water first, sunlight if possible. It's so good for you. A few deep breaths, quiet moments. I like to do it in my Bible or journal it, you know, just pull scripture out, just have that great conversation with our Lord, like guide me, pray over my day, pray over my kids, like let him lead you. And and you feel the weight already lift as you start your day. And then I love to throw a lemon wedge and some salt, um, because salt is good for you guys, and drink that water and hydrate my body. It is such a good practice to get in hydration and to slow down and let your body start to regulate for the day instead of

Protein Blood Sugar And Family Dinner

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rush. Um, protein and blood sugar support. Like this was a big one for me. And like I said, these are micro topics today. We'll go dive deeper on different episodes. But for many women, we're living on coffee, quick snacks, um, and stress hormones. Like I was the diet coke slash canola bar slash my hormones were screaming at me type of gal. Um, supporting my body with balanced meals matters more than I realized. And so I started to stop looking at dinner hour as stress and as a to-do. And instead, I looked at it as a way for me to be with my family, do something that's um good for our family, where we're we're eating better, we're making things that are more closer to whole foods, um, we're getting off the ingredient drive-through line. You know, we'll do a good pizza night here and there, but we really like to do homemade. It just tastes better. Um, and what I found is I was teaching my children healthier habits because I was wanting to be healthier myself. I had to start cooking differently when my husband got diagnosed with congestive heart failure. I had all of my stuff going on. I thought this is the perfect time to really dive even deeper into this space of our day, is not rush through it, um, but to sit at that table. And it's pretty much a non-negotiable. If you're home, we sit together, there's no phones, there never has been, there never will be. Um, there's no TV on, we are in conversation, and we're talking about like, you know, the peaks of our day or or what we're excited about, or that that that that win for the moment. I'm trying to teach my children how to really focus their life on habits and and moving the dial forward, but doing it in a way that we can laugh, we can break bread, we can, you know, have that good, solid moment no matter how busy life is. Because the reality is we can be busy. We just we dictate the busy. Oftentimes people say, I'm so busy. I'm on my girlfriend, you created the busy. You scheduled it, you put it in your planner, you sign everyone up, and that's great. I'm all about all those things, but you you're dictating your chaos with the calendar. You have to schedule slow down time in the morning. I believe dinner time is where we lay foundational roots as parents, and and we also take care of ourselves and our health and our family. And I think, guys, honestly, it's just good for the soul. It's just good for the soul to get back to those kind of things that I knew. I grew up sitting at a dinner table with our family. I grew up with parents and grandparents that we communicated and we spoke, and I wanted those relationships with my children. And so, you know, supporting your body with proper nutrition is gonna be less sick kids, less sick you, better health, better energy, better moods. No one's gonna be flipping off and you know, those those moods because blood sugar affects moods. Um, and we start to really not only teach our kids how to cook for themselves so when they fly the nest, they're gonna be able to do something other than go through a drive-thru and and and properly give them the nutrition that they need to be well with

Nervous System Peace And Phone Boundaries

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their body. Um, and then another thing that really changed for me was reducing my nervous system overload. Huh. I stopped consuming so much noise, like stopped constantly reacting. And I started protecting my peace. Now, again, full episode right here. But the reality is, is we are all overstimulated because we have a phone in our hand that is constantly giving you distractions. That's why I turn my notifications off. It's off. I don't carry my phone with me at home. It's in one spot, so I know where it's at. I kind of I call it like drive-bys. I drive by the, you know, I'm working or I'm doing stuff around the house or with my family. And every now and then I'll check in. And that's where, you know, time management and batch working has really been just pivotal for my life and getting me out of this whole like fight or flight mode of oh my gosh, there's so much happening. And I felt like like the I'll date myself here now, like the Calgon commercial, take me away where the kids are there, the dogs are barking, husbands talking, notifications are coming in, and all of a sudden you just want to go, like, ah, you know, a lot of people, that's their norm. That's their norm. Their nervous system is screaming at them, and that is cortisol, and that is just chaos in your body. And so I stopped consuming all the noise. I got off social media. Like I post a little bit, like it's like a business card for me, but I'm not living in my stories. I'm not here to be like on the camster, camster, the content hamster wheel. See, we're unedited here, we're very real here. Um, but the content that I felt like I had to do, not because I wanted it or it was serving a good return on of investment on time, but it was like keeping up with the Joneses on social media because you scroll, you look, you compare, you go, gosh, I gotta do it too, and it becomes a lot. Um, the no when you're running a large organization like I was, notifications and time zones. So what I did is I just turned down the notifications. I assigned hours where my phone literally just goes to voicemail. And so, like dinner time, it doesn't even ring. So I'm not like, who is it? I assigned from this time to this time in my life where there's no notifications coming in unless they're on my my favorites list, which is my kids and my family. So if it's an emergency, I know I'll still receive it. But guys, that was a life-changing decision, and it has brought me so much peace. I don't get caught up in all the what I have to do or feeling less than because I'm scrolling and comparing. And honestly, I just feel like I'm happier. I feel like I have more happiness, less heaviness, and true joy in my day because I'm not always looking down at a screen. I'm very, very specific in how I utilize that time. And it's really shifted how I've shown up in my day as a mom, as a wife, and then as an entrepreneur. And so, like, as I close this episode out, what I want you to understand is you cannot create a peaceful life from a constantly depleted body. You cannot build your next chapter while completely disconnected from yourself. Sometimes the most productive things that you can do is slow down enough to listen and take note of what your body's communicating

The Rooted And Renewed 21 Day Reset

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with you. And honestly, that's why I created the rooted and renewed reset. It's this free reset that literally is what I did for myself. It's scriptural based, it's got devotional, it's got a wellness aspect. If you want to take products to really help, like again, with that gut and with that nutritional element and clean energy. Um, you don't have to, but it's a great program, and it's really what got me feeling like a different person in my body. Like I can climb my stairs. Um, I don't reach for the diet sodas anymore in the morning. I don't um struggle with the sleep like I used to. I feel like when I sleep, I actually get rest. And and I and I've noticed even in the space of weight management, some weights come off. Like my body's starting to operate the way it was designed to do. But it was also a journey of spiritual aligning, understanding why I want to treat my body that way, changing habits, understanding, you know, all these components work together. Our mental health, our physical health, um, and and our complete whole body wellness comes together in this 21 days. Now it's not a fix-all, but it's a place to start, and it's for free. If you're interested in learning more, check out the information in the show notes because I want women to have a simple place to begin again. Not with shame, not with pressure, not with perfection, but with support. I know I didn't have fully that, but when I started creating this, I really felt like this was an answer beyond myself. And so I said, look, why not take everything that I've been doing and put it into this 21 days that truly does make a habit? They don't just say that, um, and gift that to my listeners so that they can start their reset right where they are today. So, friend, if this episode resonates with you, I'd love to invite you in to take that free reset. Again, you can find it at angela kmakay.com

You Are Not Broken Final Reminder

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and in the show notes of this episode. And as always, friend, let's be a reminder today you are not broken, your body is speaking, and maybe this season is your invitation to finally listen. Until next time, take care.