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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.
AI-powered journaling app Véa is supporting mental health by helping women to understand their thoughts, triggers and behavioural patterns.
Winner of the Brain and Mental Health Innovation Award at this year’s Femtech World Awards, Véa is designed to address the emotional gap in women’s health technology.
The journal – which has been built by a female team and trained on women’s health papers – tracks inner states, provides personalised insights and somatic practices, and utilises AI to explain complex neuroscience in relatable terms.
Described by its founders as a “protector, seeker, and sculptor”, Véa provides a longitudinal map of women’s emotional journeys, integrating journaling with therapy and both in-person and online community support.
The journal’s goal is to improve women’s mental health without replacing professional care.
Zahra Bhatti, co-founder and CEO and Katrina Zalcmane , co-founder and growth lead speak to Femtech World about the technology, winning a Femtech World Award and their plans for the future.
Women’s health and wellbeing technology has grown so rapidly over the last few years, but is largely focused around physical health. What was the emotional gap that you saw that inspired you to create the journal?
“Women’s health has been focused on reproductive health and physical health, but it is all one ecosystem – it always starts with the mind,” says Zahra.
“Whatever you feel down here, you feel up there too, and the hormones reflect that.
“With Véa, it was actually built from our own personal experience of burnout.
“We wanted to make a space where women could feel safe and were able to reflect what’s on their mind, but also understand their mind the same way that women understand their hormones.
“Women need to understand what happens in our minds. Véa helps women to understand cognitive distortions, why they feel the way they feel, black and white thinking – we wanted to really surface that for them.
“For example, when you’re in your luteal phase, your serotonin levels drop, so that means you’re going to be a bit more nervous.
“You’re going to be more reactive. You’re going to be taking things more deeply, and that’s something that your rational mind wouldn’t normally do if you’re in your ovulation phase.
“So that’s what Véa does – she reflects that back to you, so you understand your body and thought processes.”
Véa describes itself as a journal that’s designed for the female mind. What does that mean in practice, and how does the experience differ from using traditional journaling?
“The majority of our team is female, so Véa has been built from all of our lived experiences, and the AI itself is trained on women’s health papers,” says Katrina.
“It takes into account what having a certain condition means for individuals. For example, if you have endometriosis or PCOS, We’ve trained our AI on womens health data and research, which gets reflected back to the woman in a simple and effective way
“We have a clinical board, who are all also women, who look through the AI and the language. They ensure that all outputs are evidence based, ethical and take into account the various therapies which are proven to work for women.
“We also have somatic practices which are focused on women which we call “rituals”. We have a self-inquiry ritual, a confidence mirror ritual, or we have one of our psychotherapists on the board who does therapy through novels, for example.
“These aim to make you the protagonist of your story.
“Generic journaling apps are one size fits all, but women are not one size fits all, and that’s what we’ve made sure to put in the forefront of Véa.”
Instead of conventional mood tracking, you are focused on the inner states of women. How do you develop that approach, and what kind of insights has it revealed about how women reflect on their emotions?
Katrina says: “Mood plays a part in our inner state and Véa checks in on that.
“It allows you to have a journey across time. For example, on a good day, maybe their “protector” aspect is good at setting boundaries, but on a bad day, it could be really closed off.
“It’s a richer approach, and these inner states are tied to specific prompts which are then linked in the journaling.”
“As women, we are fluid,” adds Zahra.
“We are not one entity.
“For example, you might be in a state where you’re really overthinking, but actually, you’re seeking new perspectives, and that’s why within Véa, the inner state is called a “seeker”.
“When you converse with Véa in your seeker mode, she will challenge you in a Socratic way.
“However, the next day, you might be a “protector”, and then Véa will adjust her voice for a reflective and exploratory tone compared to when you were a seeker.
“Another state which I love is the “sculptor” which is when you’re feeling confident.
“When you’re a sculptor, Véa will talk about how you can be creative, asking questions such as ‘what did you create today?’ ‘How did that make you feel?’ and ‘How would you describe that if you could put a shape to this color, this feeling?’, for example.
“Véa goes into all of these different modes, and it builds a longitudinal map of the woman as well. So, throughout weeks, months and years, you can see how you’ve changed across time.”
How did you approach designing an AI companion that feels supportive without replacing human connection or professional care?
“For the past six years, I’ve been a product manager. So I’ve seen how all of these web apps and applications have been built, and I’ve worked quite deeply with AI so I knew what was missing and like what women truly needed,” says Zahra.
“The key thing for us is that we want to bring “URL to IRL” [in real life].
“We have a community that goes alongside Véa. This includes a WhatsApp community and events.
“We turn the rituals inside Véa into in-person workshops at our events with our clinical board and with professionals in the space.
“We are not neuroscientists, but there are neuroscientists who have helped us build the app, and we make sure that AI is there to support you, but AI will never replace that human touch.
“That’s something that’s very close to us, and we want to make sure we connect people together and help people reflect in a safe space.
“As well as AI, there is the option to talk to the clinical board, to use their rituals, to reflect with the community, and go to our events.”
Katrina adds: “The key is that whatever the touch point is, whether it’s the app or it is an event or even our online community, we don’t want women to feel alone. We want them to feel together, grow together, and process together.”
People may often start journaling with good intentions, but struggle to stick with the practice. What have you learned about building habits and how those insights have shaped the experience of your product?
Zahra says: “I think everyone wants to gamify things – what helps us is the community aspect.
“We’ve created a tribe through the community, and because it’s so hyper personalised, you help shape the app, the app doesn’t shape you. You have full control, which makes people want to come back.
“Véa remembers what you said yesterday as well as six weeks ago, and she will surface that.
“We do have “streaks”, but our streaks are very gentle – every time you get a streak, you get a neuroscience fact along with it.
“Something else we have built in that helps retention is “breakthroughs”. When Véa detects a shift in language, and will highlight, for example, that you have shifted from overthinking to certainty.”
“I think people are sick of data, they’re sick of data that they can’t interpret from. Véa interprets for you.
“Soon we will evolve even more and add more features such as cycle tracking, wearable tracking and hormone tracking, to build out that ecosystem.”
What does success look like for Véa and how do you see the app and the community evolving as you move forward?
“We want to launch across so many different markets. Our next target is the US,” explains Katrina.
“We want to bring our events over there as well. We do a lot of corporate events too. We have one with NatWest coming up – we know that work stress is a big thing, especially amongst females.
“I think there’s a real space for that in the corporate world, so that’s one of our key focuses.”
Zahra adds: “Growing in markets and keeping going with our communities. We have just launched a supper club which sold out in three days in Manchester, which is absolutely amazing. We’re doing some in London and Amsterdam as well in the next few months. We are focused on growth, growing our board as well, and keeping the female mind at the center.”
What does it mean to win the Femtech World Award?
Katrina says: “When you are so passionate and truly believe in something, you do it for that reason, but that external validation of seeing that it also matters for others in the wider space means so much.
“Especially, in Femtech – it is a whole category that has been growing, but when it comes to funding and recognising women’s issues, there is still a lot of awareness that needs to be raised.
“Being recognised gives us that fuel to continue and drive forward, and that it really does matter.”
“We want to be at the forefront of women’s mental wellness as a whole, and have put many sleepless nights into developing the app, so it is a big testament to that,” adds Zahra.
Women with the same medical conditions as men were less likely to receive the same treatment across several specialties, a global research review found.
The review found differences in care for conditions including cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and Parkinson’s, with women less likely to receive some active treatments.
Of 38 studies analysed, 33 found women were less likely than men to be offered active treatment.
Researchers at the University of St Andrews found women with myocardial infarction, heart failure or an irregular heartbeat were more likely to receive medication, while men were more likely to undergo coronary bypass surgery, stenting or other surgical treatment.
Women were also less likely to be prescribed statins.
Men with Parkinson’s were more likely to be referred for deep brain stimulation.
Men with liver failure were more likely to receive a transplant, while women with kidney disease requiring dialysis were less likely to receive permanent access and spent longer using a catheter.
Women were also less likely to receive opioids for pain management.
The researchers found no significant difference between women and men in treatment for stroke or diabetes, while women were more likely to receive treatment for dementia.
None of the studies identified clinical guidelines recommending different treatment based on sex.
Researchers said this suggested the differences could not be explained by the need for different clinical approaches to women’s health.
Dr Andrew O’Malley, who co-led the study, said: “For clinicians, the findings are a prompt to check whether treatment is being offered on clinical grounds rather than assumption.”
He said studies showed doctors more often attributed women’s symptoms to anxiety and made more diagnostic errors with female patients, even when test results were positive.
Dr Miriam Veenhuizen, honorary lecturer in the School of Medicine at St Andrews, said: “While the direction of the findings was not a surprise, the consistency was. The same pattern appeared in cardiology, surgery, transplant medicine and emergency care, and it survived statistical adjustment in most studies.”
Women entering pregnancy with multiple long-term health conditions face higher risks of miscarriage and other complications, a UK study found.
Those with two or more pre-existing physical or mental health conditions had a 20 per cent higher risk of miscarriage than women with no long-term conditions.
They also had more than twice the risk of venous thromboembolism and around four times the risk of antenatal anxiety and depression.
The UK-wide research team analysed 2,225,701 pregnancies and birth events recorded between 2000 and 2022 across five datasets covering England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Women with multiple long-term conditions had a 69 per cent higher risk of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy and a 42 per cent higher risk of pre-eclampsia.
The women also had a 32 per cent higher risk of placental abruption and a 26 per cent higher risk of gestational diabetes.
Risks rose as the number of existing conditions increased.
Among women with three or more long-term conditions, the risk of venous thromboembolism was more than three-and-a-half times that of women with no long-term conditions.
Researchers said the findings had implications for maternity services, where care pathways are largely centred on individual conditions and may not adequately meet the needs of women with multiple long-term conditions.
Dr Kelly-Ann Eastwood, joint senior author and honorary lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast and consultant obstetrician at St Michael’s Hospital, Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, said the results “help define” the urgent clinical challenges facing women entering pregnancy with multiple long-term conditions and the clinicians caring for them across the UK.
“These findings highlight the pressing need to restructure existing maternity services to improve antenatal outcomes,” she added.
The authors cautioned that the study was observational and relied on routinely collected health records, meaning some conditions and outcomes may have been under-recorded, while residual confounding could not be excluded.
The researchers plan to examine birth and child outcomes and identify which combinations of long-term conditions carry the greatest risk.
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