Parenting Exhaustion and Cortisol Crash

I’m pooped.
Seriously.
I have spent the majority of the day lying in my bed. First with a headache, some nausea… I thought I was getting sick, but then my symptoms lifted after an hour. It then hit me: my children aren’t home.
All 3 started school this week.
Today is the first day in 19 months - roughly 570 days - that my house has been child free. During that time I’ve kept 2 infants alive, started 2 businesses, did my best to be compassionate to my then-toddler-now-little-boy and done all the other life-things that one needs to do to stay afloat.
And now, this empathic introvert is bone tired.
I always talk with my exhausted sleep-deprived parents in my learning sessions about the “cortisol crash”. This occurs to anyone who has had to be on high alert for a long period and then the threat (or celebration) is over. Your cortisol is no longer needed to keep you functioning at a high level and it can quickly dump out of your system - leaving you totally unbalanced.
For my clients, soon after their child can be trusted to sleep well, the “threat” is over. Their body no longer needs that excess stress hormone to function, and this crash can occur.
The physiological reaction can be strong after the dump - headaches, nausea, aches and pains… but the emotional tole is strong too. Many people experience a state of depression as their hormonal system re-balances.
I always recommend resting, sleep, drinking lots of water, eating well and working out through this time. It’s hard to re-balance our hormones when we aren’t living in a balanced state to start off with.
So, I’m taking my advice today. Today, I’m going to rest, eat well, and I’m drinking a ton of water. Tomorrow, if my body is up to it, I’ll go for a short run and try to burn some of that cortisol to speed up the process.
And, if I play my cards right, some time soon, I’ll be feeling more like myself again.
But in the meantime, it’s my turn to feel pooped. Okay, back to my movie!