News
What 100k+ journalled words reveal about women’s mental load
By Katrina Zalcmane, co-founder of Véa
101,000 journalled words. That’s what it took to make women’s mental load measurable – and what it revealed was not what we expected.
We can track a woman’s cycle to the hour, map her hormones, her fertility window, her sleep habits.
But we have had remarkably little structured visibility into the cognitive and emotional load running underneath all of it – the layer that shapes how she makes decisions, takes risks, recovers from pressure and moves through her day.
That’s where the data gets interesting.
Across those 101,000 anonymously journalled words, Véa identified the cognitive signatures of how pressure gets metabolised – not into symptoms, but into patterns.
Overgeneralisation, fortune-telling, catastrophising: the interpretive architecture through which strain quietly becomes self-doubt, avoidance and reduced capacity.
This is not a wellness story – it’s a data story. And it points to a layer of women’s health that has been consistently underinstrumented.
Véa is an neuroscience-backed AI journal that uses semantic embeddings and a state classifier trained on emotional data to read language the way a clinician might – not for keywords but for interpretive patterns.
Each entry is stored as an emotional vector, building a longitudinal map of how a user’s inner state shifts over time.
That is what made this dataset possible.
What the Data Shows
Mental load is often described in domestic terms – the remembering, the planning, the anticipating. But in practice it is also deeply interpretive.
It lives in the ongoing internal work of pre-empting what might go wrong, reading emotional atmospheres, managing self-presentation and correcting internally before anything external has even happened.
That is not just emotional strain. It is a form of continuous cognitive expenditure.
To make that visible, Véa analysed 101,000 anonymously journalled words across 150+ beta testers over 6 months.
These were not a homogenous group: new mothers, neurodivergent women, career-switchers, high performers navigating demanding roles – different lives, different pressures, same underlying patterns.
That breadth matters – it means what we found is not a niche signal. It is structural.
Across that dataset, Véa identified more than 3,000 separate instances of cognitive distortions – recurring interpretive patterns that emerge under pressure.
The five most frequently detected were overgeneralisation, fortune-telling, “should” statements, catastrophising and black-and-white thinking.
On paper these may sound like standard CBT terminology. But taken together they reveal something more significant than stress.
They show that a large part of women’s mental and emotional load is not only what women are carrying externally – it is how rapidly and repeatedly that load gets cognitively organised into threat, failure and self-correction.
What drains women is not just the event. It is the meaning-making around the event.
The Cost of Cognitive Distortions
Overgeneralisation: when one setback becomes a self-story
The most frequent pattern was overgeneralisation: turning one event into a broader conclusion.
One awkward meeting becomes “I’m not good enough”. One rejection becomes “this always happens to me”.
Under stress, the prefrontal cortex loses flexibility, making it harder to hold context and alternative interpretations.
The brain defaults to faster, simplified conclusions, often collapsing a single event into a broader narrative.
For high-performing women, this matters because it directly affects risk-taking and recovery. If one setback becomes a signal of incompetence, the cost of visibility increases.
This aligns with workplace data showing women are more likely to self-deselect from opportunities after negative feedback or perceived underperformance.
Overgeneralisation is not just negative thinking. It is a reduction in cognitive flexibility that limits forward movement.
Fortune-telling: managing problems before they exist
The second pattern was: predicting negative outcomes without evidence, e.g. “It’s going to go badly” or “They’re not going to respond” when you have no facts to back that up.
The brain operates on predictive models, continuously forecasting outcomes.
Under stress, these predictions become threat-biased and less accurate, prioritising avoidance over exploration.
For women, this overlaps with documented anticipatory mental load – the cognitive work of planning, monitoring and pre-empting problems.
The result is inefficiency: energy is spent solving for outcomes that have not occurred.
For high performers, this reduces focus, presence and execution quality because attention is allocated to imagined scenarios rather than current tasks.
“Should” statements: the language of self-surveillance
“Should” statements reflect top-down self-monitoring where behaviour is continuously evaluated against internalised standards. Under sustained pressure, this shifts from regulation to self-criticism, increasing cognitive load.
For women, these standards are often compounded. Performance, emotional regulation and relational behaviour are all being evaluated simultaneously.
Workplace data shows women face higher expectations to balance competence with likability and are more likely to experience competence-based microaggressions.
This creates a loop of self-surveillance, splitting attention between doing and evaluating.
That split is cognitively expensive.
Catastrophising: when the system defaults to threat
Catastrophising reflects rapid escalation to worst-case scenarios.
Under cognitive load, the brain shifts toward amygdala-driven threat processing, reducing the ability to hold ambiguity and increasing urgency-based interpretation.
For high-performing women managing multiple demands, even small uncertainties can trigger escalation because they are processed on top of existing load.
The outcome is distorted prioritisation. Attention is redirected toward perceived threats rather than actual strategic work.
Black-and-white thinking: the rigidity behind perfection
The final major pattern was black-and-white thinking: interpreting situations in binaries, e.g “I’m either doing well or failing”.
It reflects reduced cognitive flexibility, a key function of the prefrontal cortex that allows for nuance and adaptive thinking.
It makes recovery harder and leaves very little room for partial progress, mixed feelings or ordinary human inconsistency.
For high-performing women, this often intersects with perfection pressure. Partial progress is discounted and anything below optimal performance is interpreted as failure.
This creates rigidity. It limits iteration, slows decision-making and makes sustained performance harder, not better.
What This Actually Means
Clinical surveys can tell you a woman is stressed. Journalling treated as longitudinal data tells you something different – it shows you how that stress is being interpreted, repeated and compounded over time.
A survey captures a moment. Language tracked across weeks and months captures a pattern.
That distinction is what makes this dataset structurally different from existing research: it surfaces the cognitive layer that self-report instruments are not designed to reach.
For corporate health and wellbeing
These patterns do not stay at home.
Overgeneralisation after a difficult meeting, fortune-telling before a high-stakes presentation, black-and-white thinking under performance pressure – these are showing up in the workplace every day, invisibly.
For organisations investing in women’s development and retention, this data reframes the conversation.
It is not enough to offer resilience training or mental health days.
The question is whether your wellbeing infrastructure is designed to address the interpretive load that sits underneath performance and whether the interventions you offer are actually built around how women experience that load.
Because that is where capacity is actually being lost.
For clinical and health frameworks
The most widely used depression screener in the world is nine questions long. It captures a snapshot.
What longitudinal language data offers is something clinical instruments have never been designed to provide – continuity.
A running record of how cognitive patterns shift, accumulate and respond to pressure over time, before they become a diagnosis.
That has real implications for how we screen, how we intervene early and how we build a picture of women’s mental health that goes beyond the biological and into the cognitive.
We are thrilled to announce the shortlist for the Menstrual Health Innovation Award at the third annual FemTech World Awards.
This award, sponsored by Premom exists to celebrate the trailblazers redefining what menstrual health means in the modern world.
It recognises breakthrough products, services, and initiatives that are pushing boundaries in technology, product design, education, accessibility, and destigmatisation.
Premom’s innovative ovulation prediction app combines a digital ovulation test reader, intelligent fertility charting, and customised cycle insights to simplify the path to motherhood.
Sister company easy@Home was the first brand in the USA to offer personalised testing solutions and devices, and has become the largest volume seller of ovulation tests in the country.
Premom’s sponsorship of this award reflects a shared commitment to empowering women with better tools, better knowledge and better outcomes across every stage of their reproductive health journey.
This year’s shortlist is a testament to the remarkable breadth of innovation happening across the femtech landscape, from wearable bioelectronics to mission-driven apps reaching underserved communities across the globe.
Congratulations to the finalist and thank you to everyone who nominated.
Menstrual Health Innovation Shortlist
Founded by healthcare designer Kateřina Rydlová, who wanted to manage her own period pain without relying on medication, Body Moody has developed a discreet, wearable heated bodysuit that delivers targeted warmth to the abdomen and back – quietly, under everyday clothing.
Made from soft viscose, controlled via a companion app, and built for 200+ washes and over five years of use, the bodysuit is as practical as it is pioneering.
Their borrow-then-buy model lowers the barrier to entry and early customer feedback speaks for itself, with users reporting that they have gone from averaging multiple painkillers per cycle to needing none at all.
Eshe is a women’s health ecosystem built for a part of the world that femtech has long overlooked.
Rooted in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 69 per cent of global maternal deaths occur, 65 per cent of women and girls in Kenya cannot afford sanitary pads, and over 60 per cent of women lack access to preventive healthcare, Eshe was created to meet women where they are.
The Eshe app offers daily menstrual cycle and fertility tracking, pregnancy monitoring, mental wellbeing check-ins, in-app consultations with qualified doctors, and health education content, all in one place.
By identifying irregular cycles, missed periods and mental health changes, the platform nudges users toward timely action rather than emergency intervention.
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) affects almost one in five women, making it the leading cause of infertility and a significant risk factor for conditions spanning obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and cognitive decline.
Despite this staggering burden, there has not been a new treatment option in seven decades – until now.
LoOoP is a bioelectronic device paired with the MyLoOoP companion app, designed to address both the metabolic and menstrual symptoms of PCOS with the ultimate ambition of avoiding, delaying, or reducing its long-term complications.
The MyLoOoP digital platform goes further still, combining evidence-backed content, clinically validated journaling tools, a validated phenotyping algorithm, and an inclusive community – closing the persistent gaps in PCOS diagnosis, information and care.
What happens next
The shortlist will be judge by a Premom representative who will announce the winner at a virtual event on June 19.
The winner will receive a trophy and be interviewed by a Femtech World journalist.
Mental health
Dr-Julian helps deliver breakthrough mental health support for Black and ethnically minoritised mothers
A groundbreaking digital perinatal mental health pilot for Black and ethnically minoritised women has helped women access support faster, complete therapy at higher rates, and recover more successfully than national averages.
The partnership between digital tech company Dr-Julian and The Essential Baby Company Ltd within a new model of mental health care named haPPIE SHE Cares – who offer personalised support for women sharing their healthcare experiences, showed results well above NHS benchmarks for Black and ethnically minoritised women.
The pilot was created to help women who are less likely to use traditional mental health services during pregnancy and in the first year after giving birth.
By combining trusted community referrals, culturally aware support, and fast access to therapy through Dr-Julian’s online and virtual care platform, the programme delivered standout results.
Every woman who joined the pilot started therapy, 90 per cent completed treatment, and 74 per cent recovered; well above the NHS benchmark of around 52 per cent.
Women referred through community organisations accessed support in just one day on average, compared with around 21 days through many standard services.
Even the programme’s regular referral route reduced waits to 13 days.
The findings come as NHS leaders continue to focus on maternity inequalities and unequal access to mental health care.
Black and ethnically minoritised women can face barriers including stigma, language needs, lack of trust in services, childcare pressures, and difficulty navigating complex systems.
The haPPIE SHE Cares model was designed to break down those barriers by working with trusted community groups, offering culturally informed support, and where possible matching women with therapists who understood their background or language.
Gemma Poole for The Essential Baby Company said: “Too many women who need help feel unseen, unheard or unable to get support when they need it most.
“This project shows that when services are built around trust, culture and community, women engage, recover and thrive.
“This early success could provide a blueprint for reducing inequalities in maternal mental health care across the UK. Behind every statistic is a mother who felt supported, a family that benefited and a woman who found her voice.
“Mental healthcare must work for every community. This partnership shows that when high-quality therapy is combined with culturally responsive support, outcomes improve and women get help faster.
We are proud to have provided the therapists, virtual care systems and digital pathways behind this programme. We believe this model could help NHS organisations nationwide cut waiting times and improve recovery rates.”
Women who took part described the programme as life-changing, saying it reduced isolation, gave them confidence speaking with healthcare professionals, and made them more willing to seek help.
With growing pressure on maternity and mental health services, leaders behind the project say the pilot offers a practical solution that improves care while helping cut long waiting lists.
Plans are now being explored to expand the model through training, regional partnerships, and future funding.
Only one per cent of women can name all five gynaecological cancers, new research suggests, as 21 women in the UK die every day of the diseases.
The report also found that 31 per cent of women have put off or avoided seeking medical advice for gynaecological symptoms.
It also found that 43 per cent of women invited for cervical screening said barriers had put them off attending, while 18 per cent of respondents aged 25 to 34 who had been invited had never attended.
The five main gynaecological cancers are womb, also called uterine, ovarian, cervical, vulval and vaginal cancer.
The Lady Garden Foundation said that, while progress has been made since the UK government’s 2022 Women’s Health Strategy aimed to improve gynaecological cancer care, significant challenges remain.
John Butler, medical director and trustee at the Lady Garden Foundation, said: “The fact that only one per cent of the population can name the diseases that directly affect half of us underscores a significant awareness gap, impacting individuals’ ability to recognise vital signs and symptoms or seek timely medical help.
“Addressing this isn’t just about awareness; it’s a critical public health priority. Our collective efforts are essential to ensure the latest commitments announced by this government translate into tangible change that saves lives.”
The report said key reasons for delaying medical advice included difficulty making appointments, embarrassment and, for cervical screening, fear of pain or previous bad experiences.
Women also reported challenges within healthcare interactions, including feeling “not taken seriously”, “dismissed” or “not believed” when seeking gynaecological advice.
Jenny Halpern Prince, chief executive and charity co-founder, said: “We frequently hear reports of women feeling ‘not taken seriously,’ ‘dismissed,’ or ‘not believed’ when seeking gynaecological advice.
“These experiences highlight crucial areas where we can improve patient support and trust within our healthcare system, ensuring women receive the empathetic and effective care they need.”
The Lady Garden Foundation said it aims to increase awareness of both the charity and the five gynaecological cancers.
It also aims to serve as a primary entry point for reliable, stigma-free information, helping people understand their bodies, recognise symptoms and overcome barriers to accessing care.
Its Silent No More Garden was unveiled at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026. Designed by Darren Hawkes, the garden serves as a national call to action, using five sculptures to spark conversations, break long-standing taboos and encourage open dialogue about symptoms and preventative care.
Butler said: “Continued focus and collaborative action are essential to progress.
“The ongoing commitment from the government, alongside societal efforts to break down taboos surrounding gynaecological health, are crucial.
“The Lady Garden Foundation is dedicated to being a beacon of information and support, empowering women with the knowledge they need. We urge everyone to learn the signs, speak up, and help us save lives.”
Entrepreneur4 weeks agoFuture Fertility raises Series A financing to scale AI tools redefining fertility care worldwide
News3 weeks agoWomen’s digital health market set to reach US$5.28 billion in 2026 – report
Diagnosis4 weeks agoNew meta-analysis further supports low re-excisions and high placement accuracy with the Magseed marker
Pregnancy4 weeks agoNIPT or NT scan? Why the 2026 evidence supports doing Both
Menopause4 weeks agoResistance training has preventative effects in menopause, study finds
Mental health4 weeks agoLifting weights shows mental health and cognitive benefits in older women, study finds
Insight3 weeks agoWhy the UK’s fertility rate keeps falling – and what it means if you’re trying now
Wellness3 weeks agoWomen’s HealthX unveils Northwell Health, Corewell Health, Biogen & more to headline Chronic Disease stage
1 Comment