Spent Women, the Generation Marked by the Exhaustion Epidemic

The stress we all feel on a daily basis, but that is more marked in 30-something women who have a career and a family to care for, has now a new term by which we can call it. It’s the exhaustion epidemic and it’s taking a toll not only on the quality of our life, but also on our health and relationships. “Spent,” the new book by Dr. Frank Lipman, comes to illustrate precisely this phenomenon and to offer solutions out of the predicament.

The harsh reality of today’s life is that women no longer have any time for themselves. Even when they schedule an appointment for a haircut or a wax, they rarely do it because they want to, but more like a chore they have to check on their to-do list. Housework, raising children and an active career make it impossible for a lady to also have a life of her own, go out with friends (who are equally as busy as she is), or simply sit down in a comfortable armchair with a glass of wine in hand and a good book or show on TV.

Dr. Lipman says in his latest book that this is the generation of “spent women.” They are so busy doing everything that has to be done, meeting deadlines, running errands and taking care of the kids, that they wake up exhausted – a feeling that lingers with them until the end of the day, when they’ll most likely fall asleep on the sofa without even realizing it. They work too much, get too involved and invest too much in everything they do – up to the point of going into a routine that they can’t break later.

“When the alarm rings, Emily groans and hits the snooze button. Lying there dreading the second ring, she feels dead on her feet before she is even on them.” Dr. Lipman writes about his typical spent patient, Emily. She lives on caffeine and has a life well compartmented by deadlines, looks as if 20 years older than her real age, with dull hair, dull eyes, and is almost constantly absent-minded, thinking ahead of the next thing that comes in her agenda.

The worst part of this is that Emily is not an isolated case. While men are taking a backseat in all family-related issues (a recent study has shown that they rarely, if ever, change diapers, for instance), everything falls on the woman’s shoulders – and their numbers are increasing by the day, Dr. Lipman shares. What he proposes as a solution out of this is a more holistic approach to life, where relationships and communication still have a major significance, where there is no rush to do it all by sundown, and where life is, in the end, a truly enjoyable experience, as it should.