Being a working mom is no easy task! Balancing a career, managing household responsibilities, caring for your family, and maintaining healthy relationships with others is challenging. Not to mention engaging in self-care, and finding time for yourself! All of this can leave you feeling overwhelmed, drained of energy, and wondering how you can do it all.
Despite these challenges, it’s important to make sure that you’re not neglecting your own well-being by practicing self-care. Real and sustainable self-care is not a temporary fix but rather something you do as an investment in your future self. Practicing self-care is essential to maintaining your overall physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and professional well-being.
Let’s take a look at 4 ways to practice self-care as a working mom.
Include Movement in Your Day
One great way to help manage stress and improve mood is to stay physically active. Regular physical activity has a strong impact on your mental and physical health and everyone can benefit from moving more.
Finding the time to incorporate more exercise or movement into your very busy day can be challenging but the benefits will be well worth it. If you are truly lacking in time, want to ease into movement, or can’t commit to a full exercise routine, incorporating exercise into your day-to-day life in smaller ways can really add up.
Some ideas include stretching at your desk every hour, taking a short walk during your break, and doing something active with your kids. Finding something that you enjoy doing, like gardening, walking your dog, or taking an exercise class with a friend can also increase your motivation to be active.
Prioritize Sleep
In addition to moving your body, resting and sleeping are equally important and essential to your overall well-being. As a working mom, you may find yourself sacrificing sleep to spend quality time with your family or to cross things off your list. However, being deprived of quality sleep can have severe negative impacts on your life by impairing cognitive functioning, weakening your immune system, and increasing stress.
Prioritize sleep by establishing a regular sleep schedule by going to bed and waking up at about the same time every day. Take a look at your sleep hygiene which is your sleep environment and behavior. Is your sleep area comfortable? Does your evening routine signal to your body that it’s time for bed? Is drinking caffeine too late in the day keeping you up late unnecessarily?
You might not be able to fix everything but even a small change can improve how much you sleep and the quality of your sleep by a lot.
Build and Use Your Support System
Building and using your support system is one of the most effective ways to practice self-care as a working mom. It is extremely difficult to do everything yourself and, most times, that will come at a cost to your health. Prioritizing social connection with others, whether it’s with family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, acquaintances, or new friends, and making time for regular social interactions with others will help you build the support system you need. Don’t hesitate to ask for help when you need it.
Reach out to people who understand your challenges and can provide you with the support that you need. Different people in your support network will be able to provide you with different types of support.
For instance, family members may be able to provide meals or childcare while a friend who is also a working mom may provide emotional support over shared challenges. You can also seek support through therapy, support groups, or join other communities where you can share experiences.
Set Boundaries and Delegate Responsibilities
As a working mom, trying to do it all can easily lead to burnout. Setting boundaries and delegating responsibilities is essential to being able to juggle the demands of your career and family and to help you maintain a balanced life. With clear boundaries and expectations in place, you will reduce stress and have more energy and time for the things that matter the most to you.
One important boundary to create and maintain is to have a clear line between work and your personal and family life. Of course, this isn’t always possible especially with more people working from home these days. But, being able to separate the two as much as you can will help prevent stress from one area of your life from bleeding into another.
Another way to set a boundary is to prioritize the things that are most important to you and doing your best to find a way to be present for these things. This might be rearranging your schedule in order to attend your children’s sporting events, consistently going to bed at a certain time despite there always being more work to be done, or saying no to avoid overcommitting yourself and abandoning the things that you need to be happy and healthy.
Delegating responsibilities is another way to take back more time and energy. Asking others to help complete tasks and take on responsibilities that don’t necessarily need to be yours will help lighten your load.
Oftentimes, you can underestimate how much our children or partner are able and willing to do. For instance, your toddlers weren’t able to independently do laundry or make a meal but now that they’re a bit older are they able to safely take on more of these tasks? Is your partner aware of the need to reevaluate everyone’s contributions to the household?
Some people consider self-care to be a luxury but, in reality, it’s necessary for a balanced, satisfying, and fulfilling life as a working mom. There are many ways to practice self-care including those previously discussed so be curious and flexible with your approach and try to find a combination of things that work for you. Incorporating self-care into your daily life will ultimately help you thrive as a working mom!
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Other Therapy Services Available at Catalyss Counseling:
Here at Catalyss Counseling, we want to meet all of your counseling needs in the Denver area. Our supportive therapists provide depression counseling, therapy for caregiver stress, grief and loss therapy, stress management counseling and more. We also have specialists in trauma and PTSD, women's issues, pregnancy and postpartum depression or anxiety, pregnancy loss and miscarriage, and birth trauma. For therapists, we can also provide clinical supervision! We look forward to connecting with you to help support your journey today.
Author Biography
Pansy Ayala is a licensed therapist with Catalyss Counseling and specializes in treating adults with anxiety, depression, grief and loss, and relationship issues. She uses a holistic, individualized approach to better understand who you are, what areas of your life you find problematic, and how you can reach your goals. She especially enjoys working with parents. Follow Catalyss Counseling on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
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