Mom-Time. Learning to Relax
Being a mother is the most rewarding roles in the world. It can come with some times of stress, too. It does not matter if you are a full-time mom or a working mom, lemons in life happen. No matter how stressful mom-life can be, you need to make time for yourself. A few of the following tips will help you make your life less stressful.
Progressive relaxation
If you can’t find hours upon hours of time to relax, spend time doing progressive relaxation. All you need to do is to squeeze the muscles of your legs and feet for a few seconds. You will feel the muscles tense up then slowly ease the tension by releasing your squeezing efforts.
Then go on to the next muscle groups, thighs and glutes, and repeat. After this, you can now move on to your abdominal muscles and lower back. Go up to your chest and upper back. The last will be your arm and forearm muscles, then hands.
Your hands will need special attention since they are among the most abused parts of your body. Make a fist and tighten it. Slowly release and then stretch your fingers back one at a time.
As you go through tightening and relaxing your body muscles, you will begin to feel tension being relieved from your body.
Inhale, Exhale
Fast and shallow breathing is a sign of being stressed out. When you are not breathing the correct way you are not able to inhale proper amounts of oxygen. Aside from obvious negative effects of not breathing in enough oxygen, a lack of oxygen can lower positive effects of reducing toxins from your body.
The good thing is that regular deep breathing is not a strenuous exercise to do. Lie down flat on your back, preferably on a firm surface. Hold your hands just below your rib cage and inhale long and hard. Exhale slowly until you release every bit of air you inhaled. By repeating this process a few times per day you are likely to develop a healthy habit of deep breathing.
Give your brain a vacation
Sometimes, the most relieving thing to think about is nothing at all. Giving your brain a vacation from thinking, or having it only think about the beautiful things in your life, is a great way to relieve stress. Your body feels what your brain thinks. If you are always focused on stressful things than your body will be stressed, too. If you focus on happy thoughts, than your body will feel happy.
There are a lot of ways to squeeze in time to relax as a mom, even if for just a moment. In addition to the above tips, the joy that I find in my child’s face when playing with our teething jewelry is as fool-proof a method of relaxation as there can be.