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Learn more about our resident mental health expert and author of Mental Health Mondays, Jade Savage.

Hello moms!

To get this blog series started, I want to begin with basic things that you can do in your daily life to help manage your mental health and give yourself a mental health break when things feel overwhelming. If we are not taking care of ourselves, we are not going to be able to give to our families, spouses, and others the extent that we would like.

There are some practical things that you can do to help reset and find some more light in your day. When I talk about these things, you might be thinking, “yeah okay, that is really going to help,” (sarcasm intended). And I hear you. But I promise that when these are put into regular practice, you are going to be able to better regulate your mental health. Instead of going through the motions with the following tool, I want you to focus on what you are doing, focus on what it is going to do for you, and focus on the self-care. When we do these practices, but are just going through the motions, we won’t find the relief and the benefits that these practices can offer. Please keep that in mind!

Prioritize Adult Time

The first tool is adult time. Some of you might be hollering and shouting in joy because of the lack of adult time you have throughout your day. Adult time is self-explanatory, but let’s look at it and how we can achieve it. Adult time is going to look different depending on the mom and their circumstances. For some of you, your young children are depending on you throughout your entire day. For others, you might be going off to work, with an outside source to care for your children. For others yet, your kids might be in school and have afterschool activities. And let’s be honest, there are probably some (a lot?) of you that have a combination of all the listed above. No matter where you are, what you are doing, what demands you are having during your day, I can almost bet that you aren’t taking time for yourself or are having a hard time finding that alone time. Am I right?

Now, what is adult time? ANYHING that does not include your kids or other people’s kids that fills your bucket. For some this may be working for a few hours a day, while for others it may be an hour with your favorite book. It does not matter, as long as it is an adult-only activity that makes you feel good. And I know, we love the kids in our lives. I absolutely adore my friends’ kids, my sisters’ kids, and so forth, but that does not mean that we can’t take time and do things without them! If you’re thinking this isn’t going to work for you, I challenge, you: this is a form of loving your kids. When you demonstrate self-care and start being selfish (yes selfish) with your time to fill your bucket, it helps your kids understand the importance of investing in oneself and that they too can and should have their own time to fill their bucket and do the things that they want to do. I encourage you to find time in your everyday that is adult-only. If this means finding a babysitter, asking a friend for help, taking turns with your spouse/partner, do it. Find a way to take time for your adult self, it will feed your soul! And to take it a step further, while you are taking the time, remind yourself why these adult activities are important and smile knowing this is all for you, and will ultimately benefit the entire family.

Take A Deep Breath

Are you ready for the next one? Ready…. 1, 2, 3… Breathing. Yep, that’s right. The thing you do all day long without even realizing you are doing it. Breathing exercises are SO helpful, and it brings awareness to your body. Your strong, amazing, incredible, capable body that has brought you through so much. The next time you are feeling stressed or overwhelmed, instead of starting that spiral of freaking out, negative thoughts, panic, stress, and anxiety, we take a moment to stop and do a breathing exercise. Let me explain!

Set a timer on your phone for one minute. During that minute, you take deep breaths. Like deep where you feel your stomach expand with air and maybe your chest rise and slowly exhale. Count how many of those deep breaths you can do within that one minute. You will notice that your heart rate has slowed, and you feel calmer and more collected. Remember that number you counted to. Next time you feel stressed and overwhelmed, you take those deep breaths and count to that number. Again, we don’t just want to go through the motions. When we are breathing, focus on that breath going in and out. Focus on your heart rate slowing down. Focus on your thoughts, are they negative or positive? If they are negative, start to re-work them to make them more positive, which will lead you to feel better. Our goal is to stop you from feeling more stressed and more overwhelmed, and start that process of calming yourself, resetting yourself, and being present. You could even combine the two tactics listed above. Next time you are having your adult time – start your time by doing those breaths.

Ground Yourself

A topic I want to touch on and will probably come back to is grounding. Grounding is a tactic that counselors/therapists use with their pregnant and postpartum clients. It’s when you as moms feel like life is falling around you. You are sad, lonely, touched out, anxious, maybe have depressive and scary thoughts, and everything just feels like it’s too much – we ground. This can be hard when you are doing it alone, which is where the benefit of that counselor-client relationship comes in. However, when you start to focus and pay attention to how you are feeling, you can begin practicing to first notice the signs of a spiral and then ground. Grounding starts by understanding that you are in this frantic state, and that you realize you need to calm. A practice that you can do is sit down and plant your feet firmly on the ground. Notice your feet on the ground. You are here, you are okay. You can even say that to yourself – my feet are on the ground, I am here, I am breathing, I am okay. Another practice is the 5×5 where you start noticing your senses and you list five things that you see, smell, taste, feel, and hear. It disrupts that out-of-control thinking and brings you back to the present, back to the moment. The breathing practice I talked about earlier can also be used to help ground yourself. Grounding is something we can do at any time but is especially helpful and necessary when we are spiraling.

These are things I want you to focus on. Starting small, but focusing on these small things and implementing them, and then we can grow and add to your tool house in the following weeks!

Last thing before we meet again: when we demonstrate and practice these self-help/self-care practices, we are showing our children, no matter the age, what it can look like to have a healthy relationship with ourselves. We show them that taking time for yourself is not only okay but encouraged. We show them healthy tips so that when they are having those big emotions, they can think about how their mom took deep breaths to help her calm down. You as moms can do it with them and help them through it. We are showing them it’s okay to not feel okay, but that there are things we can do to help ourselves feel better. Those littles can have such BIG emotions that sometimes feel confusing and overwhelming. Starting healthy coping mechanisms early on will greatly benefit the child and your family all together.

I loved chatting with you all! Please remember when life gets hard, be kind to yourself. You are doing a great job and I believe in you. You got this! See you next time!

Reminder: this is not a form of therapy/counseling. If you are experiencing negative mental health symptoms, I encourage you to reach out to a local mental health professional so that you are able to get direct help and start feeling better.