Motherhood & Mental Health: Three Tips for Taking Care of Yourself

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Motherhood is an incredibly rewarding and amazing experience, but almost everyone can agree that it’s not always an easy road. The truth is, being a mom can be tough.

While being a mom comes with irreplaceable feelings of love and gratitude, its responsibilities can also come with feelings of burnout, overwhelm and stress.

While it’s essential to care for your children, it is also essential to care for yourself. After all, you want to be your best self for both you and your children. 

Keeping yourself accountable and looking out for your mental health can feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to. Consider these helpful tips that can help keep you and your little ones healthy and thriving.

Ask for Help

While we all like to believe ourselves to be superheroes who can handle everything by ourselves, in actuality, everybody needs a little help now and then. Help can mean whatever you need it to be, whether it’s asking your significant other to help you out with certain tasks or having somebody babysit for an afternoon or evening. 

If you find your mental health is suffering and you’re not able to be yourself, it’s more than okay to seek      out qualified professionals to help. You are not the first person to be experiencing this, and you will certainly not be the last, and there are professionals specialized in this field who are well equipped to help you through any time. 

If you live in Canada, this help may be covered by your health benefits. All you need to do is find the right person! The good news is there are plenty of professionals accessible across the country. You can easily find a mental health clinic in Hamilton, Ontario or find a mental health clinic in Vancouver with Medimap, an online platform dedicated to making healthcare accessible for Canadians. 

Be Kind to Yourself

This is far easier said than done but try to have the same compassion for yourself as you do for your family. Try to think, what would you do to your spouse or child coming to you feeling down or overwhelmed?

Our inner saboteur can be cruel to us, especially sensitive concerns such as our bodies following a child or feelings of ineptitude or incapability. Try to turn the conversation around in your head. 

Try to flip the script, control the conversation, and silence negative self-talk. Instead of talking down to yourself, try applauding yourself for how amazing it is you were able to create life or how you overcame such hardships in the span of just a few months.

It’s also important not to compare yourselves to other moms, whether they’re your friends, strangers at school, or even your own parents. It’s okay, of course, to go to others for advice and tips, but be sure not to trap yourself into an echo chamber of others. You’re your own person, and for better or worse, your parenting methods and your journey are your own to decide. Remember that healing is not linear.

Find Time for You

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to devote all of your time and energy to your family, but doing so can cause you to become overwhelmed and burn out quickly.

Finding time for yourself and self-care can mean whatever you want it to be, whether it’s starting a new hobby, taking time to read a book, joining a sports group, or even just going to the gym or taking a long and quiet bath.

Taking small moments out of your day can help balance out your parenthood pressures, reset your focus, and help you take a momentary breath during the day.