When Stress Speaks Through the Body: Ovaries, Aging & Awakening
What if the real clock on your health isn’t on your iPhone, but in your ovaries? Stress accelerates that clock — quietly, daily, until the body begs for release.
Stress doesn’t just live in your mind. It speaks through your body - sometimes in whispers, sometimes in screams. For women, one of the most overlooked ways stress shows up is through ovarian health, hormonal shifts, and the silent acceleration of aging.
This is my story of how stress, fibroids, acne, and awakening taught me to finally listen to my body and why women everywhere need to understand how ovarian health is tied to resilience.
Let me take you back to where it really began.
The Season of Too Much: When Stress Builds
After my second child was born, I thought I could handle it all.
Two kids under two.
A demanding medical career.
A full social calendar with my husband.
And then my father got sick. Terminally.
I wanted to be present, but caregiving added another layer of strain.
My coping strategy? A shrimp burrito from a spot near the hospital became my daily ritual. Looking back, I see now: I was emotionally eating, numbing one bite at a time.
After he passed, I cried - deep, ugly shower cries. I listened to emo music. I let myself feel everything. There was relief in his peace, and also grief in the permanence of death.
Life kept moving, and so did I. Holidays with two small kids, dinners with friends, wine, cocktails, endless to-dos. I convinced myself it was normal.
But my body disagreed
The Wake-Up Call: Acne, Fibroids & a Body in Survival
One morning I woke up to painful adult acne across my face. Not the kind of thing you can hide behind clothes or makeup. Around the same time, my periods became unpredictable and heavy.
A doctor’s visit revealed a fibroid. My mother had fibroids too - hers led to a hysterectomy in her 40s.
I knew I had a choice: repeat the pattern or break it.
I realized my symptoms weren’t random.
They were intelligent responses from a body that had been in overdrive for too long.
And I started to wonder: What else had I internalized from my mother’s story?
—> Where is stress showing up in your body right now? Your skin? Your cycles? Your sleep?
Inherited Patterns: My Mother’s Wounds, My Healing
My mother’s story became my map. Not of where I wanted to go, but of what I could choose not to repeat.
She, too, carried everything - responsibilities, stress, silence. Like so many women of her generation, she was never taught to process emotions.
Stress lived in her body until it demanded surgery.
Her wounds became my healing. I saw clearly that if I didn’t change, I was heading down the same path.
What I didn’t realize until much later is just how much stress impacts our reproductive organs - particularly the ovaries.
Ovarian Aging: The Silent Clock No One Talks About
Here’s what most women don’t know: the ovaries age faster than any other tissue in the body.
That’s not just anecdotal - it’s science.
Research shared at the Women’s Health Innovation Forum highlights ovarian health as a key driver of female longevity. When ovarian function begins to decline, even as early as our 30s, it impacts our brain, bones, heart, and overall vitality.
Dr. Jennifer Garrison, PhD, at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, is one of the leaders reshaping this conversation. Her research highlights that reproductive longevity is about far more than fertility, it’s about how well women live in the second half of life.
And yet women’s health remains profoundly underfunded: only 10% of NIH funding and less than 3% of biotech investment go to women’s health, despite women carrying a disproportionate load of stress-related illness.
Stress directly impacts ovarian health by disrupting hormones, increasing inflammation, and accelerating aging.
We are not imagining this.
“Up to 90% of doctor’s visits are related to stress.”
— American Institute of Stress / CDC-supported estimates
For professional, high-functioning women, stress often hides behind productivity, caretaking, overworking, or emotional avoidance.
But stress doesn’t just affect your mood.
It alters your hormones, your nervous system, your gut, your skin.
It directly impacts your ovarian health and, by extension, your aging process.
My fibroid was not a fluke.
My acne was not random.
My fatigue, insomnia, and foggy brain were not “just getting older.”
They were signs of a nervous system stuck in survival mode.
The Pandemic as a Mirror
Then came COVID.
Like many, I was sick, scared, parenting, working, and still pretending everything was “fine.” But deep down, I wasn’t okay.
The pandemic stripped away distractions and revealed the truth:
Presence is precious.
Energy is sacred.
Relationships that drain your nervous system come at a cost.
Stress was no longer something I could push through. It was something I had to face.
Coming Back Home Through Somatic Healing
When acne, fibroids, and chaotic cycles showed up, I could have ignored them and kept pushing through. Instead, I chose to listen before things spiraled further.
I shifted my lifestyle — not in punishment, but in love.
I embraced Ayurveda to cool my fiery Pitta energy.
I cut back on alcohol.
I leaned fully into somatic healing, applying to myself what I had taught so many others.
And everything changed:
My acne cleared.
My fibroid resolved.
My cycles regulated.
My energy returned.
Most importantly, I felt safe in my body again.
Stress had closed me off, but awe opened me back up.
“Awe is the reset button of the nervous system.”
- Dr. Dacher Keltner, UC Berkeley
Even tiny moments of awe — wind in the trees, music that stirs your soul, gazing at a full moon — can lower inflammation, calm the inner critic, and rewire your brain.
What I Know Now: Lessons From My Body
Here’s what my journey taught me:
The body is always speaking. We just have to listen.
Stress isn’t just emotional — it’s cellular.
Ovarian health is a barometer of vitality, not just fertility.
Your symptoms are not failures. They’re feedback.
You’re allowed to slow down before you break down.
Final Words: Your Body Knows the Way Home
If you’ve been ignoring the whispers of your body — heavy cycles, fatigue, brain fog, acne, ongoing sleep issues — you’re not broken.
You’re biologically responding to a culture that demands more than women can sustainably give.
But healing is possible.
Resilience is rewritable.
And your body already knows the way home. All you have to do is listen.
Take the Next Step
Ready to understand how stress really shows up in your body?
👉 Take the What’s Your Stress Vibe? Quiz - a fun assessment that reveals your unique nervous system pattern and the best first step to regulate it in only a few minutes.
Because you don’t need another quick fix.
You need to know what your body is really telling you.
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About the Author
Dr. Lynette Santos Malik, MD is a holistic physiatrist, somatic stress coach for professional woman and founder of the Golden Love Collective. She specializes in nervous system regulation for high-achieving women, subconscious healing, and guiding clients to reconnect with their bodies without sacrificing their lives or careers. Through her signature program, Golden Habits™, she blends somatic techniques, hypnosis, + optional psychedelic integration for women on that journey — helping them release stress, prevent burnout, and lead with presence at the cellular level and embody a new way of leading.
🔗 Take the quiz: What’s Your Stress Vibe?
📍 Learn more at Golden Love Collective