During my first year of full time motherhood, I received a very big wake up call about my ability to mitigate stress in a way my family was not affected.
Let’s be real. Motherhood isn’t this dream life where you wake up in the morning and float on clouds all day as you focus on giving and receiving love to your children. What it is, is it’s trying to get multiple people to adhere to a schedule, worry about feeding everybody nutritious food, trying to get your kids engaged in activities that will help them learn and grow, staying on top of household and/or financial responsibilities while you’re super tired, and worrying about your adult relationships that you don’t have a lot of time to nurture. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for ourselves. It’s A LOT to balance. And oftentimes, it feels pretty damn unbalanced.
As mothers, we are tempted daily to forgo our needs for our children and spouse’s needs. Hey, I’m guilty of it too. But I’m hoping to convince you in this post that taking time for self-care is just as important as all of the other million things you have to do each day…maybe even MORE important than all of the other things.
Let’s start by reviewing the 10 Benefits of Self-Care for Mothers
- Increased Emotional Availability: When Moms take care of themselves, they have more emotional and physical energy to respond to their children’s needs. This helps them to create a supportive and nurturing environment.
- Better Stress Management: To illustrate, picture rain drops on a lake. First, a few sprinkles of rain falling from the sky that land on the lake’s surface. Since they are smaller and fewer in number, they create fewer ripples which do not spread that far from the point of entry. But when it’s pouring outside, the splash and the ripples from the rain drops are dramatically bigger, making the water surface more agitated. This also increases the surface area the ripples reach, affecting a greater area of the lake surface. We all have stress but the way we manage our stress has a ripple effect on our environment and the ones we love. If we do not take steps to mitigate stress (self-care), our stress response is exacerbated. Moms who prioritize self-care can manage stress more effectively. This creates a calmer and more peaceful household where children feel secure and relaxed.
- Improved Mental Health: Self-care helps improve mental health by: reducing stress, boosting mood, enhancing emotional regulation, improving sleep quality, promoting mindfulness, increasing self-esteem, building resilience, fostering a sense of control, strengthening social connections, and increasing productivity. When moms are mentally healthy, they are able to have healthier interactions with their children and a more positive home environment.
- Positive Role Modeling: Children learn their habits from influential adults. When mothers practice self-care, they teach their children the importance of looking after their own well-being, which sets a strong example for maintaining mental and physical health. Also, the lessons and habits we learn in childhood are often carried into adulthood.
- Increased Patience: If we want to be able to respond patiently to our kids, we must start from a place of calm, not internal chaos or exhaustion. Taking time for self-care helps moms reset and recharge, setting them up for success in responding to challenges with calm and understanding.
- Stronger Relationships: Building relationships (with anyone) takes effort, and effort takes energy. By nurturing themselves, mothers have more energy and emotional stability to create meaningful connections and engage more fully with their kids, thus building stronger relationships with their children.
- Better Physical Health: Moms who prioritize self-care often engage in regular exercise, proper nutrition, and adequate rest, which leads to better physical health. This results in more energy to keep up with their kids and set a healthy example.
- Improved Self-Confidence: When we show ourselves love by nurturing our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, we assign a higher value to ourselves, thereby increasing our self-worth and confidence. Moms who model self-confidence create an environment where kids feel secure and empowered to take on challenges.
- Reduced Burnout: One thing that cars and humans have in common is that they both cannot go on an empty tank. Taking time for themselves helps moms avoid burnout (depletion of their gas tank), which can lead to irritability and exhaustion. This allows them to be more present, focused, and emotionally available for their children.
- Balanced Parenting: Moms who practice self-care are more likely to balance their own needs with those of their children, leading to more effective, compassionate, and thoughtful parenting through: emotional support and nurturance, setting boundaries and expectations, discipline with empathy, encouraging independence, adaptability, and open communication. This ultimately helps kids feel loved and supported.
When we look at all of the amazing benefits above, we realize that self-care helps us to bring our whole selves to our relationships. As a result, our kids get the best version of their mom. Our spouse gets the best version of their wife. Our friends also get to hear from us more often (and we don’t feel so isolated and alone because of it). We feel pride in being the best version of ourselves. And, one of the most powerful incentives for me, our kids get a role model for healthy coping, which means they too will learn how to take care of their physical, emotional, spiritual, and relationship needs, and set healthy boundaries for themselves as adults.
Implementing a Self-Care Routine
Now that we know how truly powerful self-care is for transforming your relationship with your children, let’s dive into how to implement a self-care routine.
First, if you feel as though you don’t yet have a thorough understanding of what self-care entails, make sure to check out my previous blog post: The Truth About Self Care: What Is It, Why It Is Important, and How To Implement a Self-Care Routine
In this post, I detail the five different types of self-care, why they’re all important, and examples of each type. Don’t skip this post – it will be a vital piece of the puzzle. Afterall, you can’t effectively implement a self-care routine if you don’t have a fundamental understanding of what it is.
Steps You Can Take to Implement a Self-Care Routine
The first step in implementing a self-care routine is to take an objective look at your current self-care habits to see where you may be falling short. There are five different categories for self-care and each are important. (Again, did you read my previously referenced post about what self-care is?)
Ideally you want to be engaging in at least one activity for each of the five self-care categories, in order to maintain optimal physical and emotional energy levels and respond to stress in a healthy way.
To help you assess, I’ve created a free assessment tool that you can get here:
Next, you want to come up with a self-care plan. Self-care is meant to be something you spend time on daily, not just when you are starting to feel worn out.
This can be in the form of a daily schedule where you identify specific activities you will do during specific times of day
OR
You can create a self-care menu to house your self-care ideas and serve as inspiration when you want to perform an act of self-care.
Included with the free assessment tool above is a template to build your own self-care menu, which is where you can list all of the types of self-care activities you would enjoy doing for each of the five types of self-care. Just like menus in a restaurant, the purpose of the menu is to help you decide which activity sounds enjoyable in the moment, if you are having a hard time coming up with ideas.
Again, get it here:
I want to promote my self-care menu a little more because it has been a game changer for me. You see, I can sometimes be inconsistent with schedules and therefore I need something a little less rigid, which is where my menu comes into play. I make it a point to check in with myself at least once a day, typically in the evenings, and identify what my “battery” (energy) level is currently at. I then select self-care activities from my menu to complete that I feel will help to recharge my “batteries.” The lower the charge on my “batteries,” the more activities I aim to complete. It’s a way to ensure I’m getting in some self-care daily without having to stick to a rigid schedule or routine.
Also, to ensure your success in carrying out your self-care plan, you may need to spend some time setting boundaries. A boundary helps you to protect your time and energy in order to ensure you have the time and energy to follow through with your plan. To do this, reflect on a typical day and consider:
- What are the activities I do regularly that do not align with my values? (Consider eliminating these, if you can…)
- What activities can I delegate?
- Are there any shortcuts I can take on certain activities to help create more time for self-care?
- What personal rules can I implement to help increase follow through (example: I will go to bed by 10pm nightly to ensure I get adequate physical rest)
- What self-care activities can I pair with another undesirable activity (example: listening to an enjoyable podcast while you clean) to help squeeze in more opportunities for self-care
Finally, ask for help. Raising kids takes a community, so let go of the “superwoman” persona you’ve been hoping to project and ask for help (either at home or at work). This help can come from your spouse, parents, adult siblings, friends, coworkers, or a coach or mentor.
Additional Resources to Help You Implement a Self-Care Practice
I create content about important skills which impact the health and quality of relationships, including self-care, healthy coping, communication, mindfulness, meditation, and shadow work. Follow me on these social platforms for more content:
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Finally, if you’re struggling to implement a self-care practice, or any of the skills I write about in my blog, let’s connect! Schedule a complimentary 30 minute call with me to discuss your barriers and how I may be able to help you eliminate them.
Thank you for reading this post! Comment your thoughts below 🙂.