Why So Many Women Are Stuck in “Middle Gear” - And Why That Leads to Drinking at the End of the Day
There’s an idea often shared by neuroscientist Tommy Wood that explains why so many women feel permanently exhausted - yet struggle to truly rest.
He talks about humans having different “gears,” not just physically, but neurologically and emotionally. Many women, in particular, spend much of their lives in what he describes as “middle gear” - a state of constant alertness, responsibility, mental load, and task switching.
Very simply:
Low gear is rest, safety, calm, and recovery
High gear is focus, challenge, creativity, and meaningful effort
Middle gear is alert, responsible, and coping - but stretched
The problem isn’t that women go into high gear.
It’s that many women are living almost their entire lives in middle gear.
And this is where the end-of-day drink starts to make complete sense.
What “middle gear” actually feels like
Middle gear doesn’t look like burnout. It looks like functioning.
It can feel like:
Constant task switching
Holding multiple responsibilities in your head
Being interrupted, responding, adjusting, and managing all day
Never fully concentrating, never fully resting
It’s like having 5,000 tabs open in your brain - none of them closing, all of them quietly draining energy.
You’re not falling apart, but you’re never restored. From a nervous system perspective, this is low-grade, ongoing stress. Not dramatic enough to trigger collapse, but persistent enough to slowly deplete you.
What happens in the brain when we stay in the middle gear too long
This is where the neuroscience matters.
When you spend long periods in constant middle gear, your prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain responsible for rational decision-making, long-term thinking, impulse control, and perspective - starts to fatigue. This isn’t a personal failing. It’s biology.
As that part of the brain becomes depleted, decision-making capacity drops. You become less able to weigh long-term consequences or pause before reacting.
At that point, the brain starts handing the reins over to the limbic system - the more emotional, survival-driven part of the brain.
And the limbic brain has one job:
Get you out of stress and overwhelm as quickly as possible.
It doesn’t care about tomorrow.
It doesn’t care about sleep, anxiety, or how you’ll feel next week.
It cares about immediate relief.
Why alcohol becomes the obvious solution
Here’s the key piece many women miss: The limbic brain remembers what worked before.
It remembers that alcohol:
Relaxes the body quickly
Numbs emotional intensity
Creates an immediate sense of relief
So when you reach the end of the day utterly depleted - prefrontal cortex offline, nervous system stretched - the limbic brain steps in and says:
“This worked last time. Let’s do that.”
This is not about lack of willpower.
It’s about a brain that’s trying to keep you safe in the fastest way it knows how.
The problem is that the limbic brain is short-term focused. It doesn’t factor in disrupted sleep, next-day anxiety, or long-term wellbeing. So the cycle continues.
Why alcohol doesn’t actually take you into real low gear
Alcohol can feel like it switches everything off.
But neurologically, it doesn’t create true rest.
Instead, it:
Suppresses the nervous system artificially
Disrupts deep, restorative sleep
Increases stress hormones overnight
Leaves you waking up foggy, flat, or wired
So you start the next day already depleted - straight back into middle gear.
Which means by evening, your brain once again reaches for the fastest relief available.
Why women are especially vulnerable to this pattern
Women often carry:
Mental load
Emotional labour
Caretaking roles
Constant relational awareness
This keeps the brain in continuous low-level task switching - scanning, anticipating, responding.
Many women rarely drop into true low gear during the day.
Rest is postponed.
Stillness feels unfamiliar.
Even “downtime” often includes scrolling, organising, or planning. So by evening, the nervous system isn’t just tired - it’s overdrawn.
The real solution isn’t more discipline - it’s more low gear
Here’s the reframe that changes everything: The goal isn’t to fight the urge to drink at the end of the day. The goal is to stop arriving at the end of the day completely depleted.
That means building frequent low-gear breaks throughout the day, not just collapsing at night.
Low gear looks like:
Stepping outside without your phone
Sitting in silence for a few minutes
Gentle movement
Single-tasking instead of constant switching
Letting your nervous system feel safe, even briefly
These moments allow the prefrontal cortex to recover and stay online.
And when that part of the brain is resourced, you’re far less likely to hand decision-making over to the limbic system.
When women learn how to step out of constant middle gear and into genuine low gear regularly, something shifts.
The urge to drink often softens - not because they’re trying harder, but because their nervous system no longer needs emergency relief.
If you’re curious about going alcohol-free but you’re not sure where to start, download my FREE GUIDE HERE.