Stress Free Mama

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Tips for Moms to Reduce Stress

Sometimes you race from one appointment to the next. You get so busy that figuring out how to slow down becomes another challenge. You could use a few quick tips. For moms on the go, here are 10 great ways to reduce stress.

In the spirit of David Letterman, we will start with #10.

Drum roll please….

The Top 10 Quick Tips for Moms to Reduce Stress

Young woman journaling for stress relief10. List 3 things you are grateful for. Better yet, buy a pretty journal and start a “Gratitude Journal”. Each morning list 3 things to be grateful for. To up the ante, list 3 different things every day.

9. Take a walk in nature. Even if your nature walk is around the city block, take a walk, breathe deeply, notice the flowers and trees, listen for birds. A 10 minute walk can be quite refreshing.

8. Take a weekend “at home vacation”. This is one of the best tips for moms because it is so not what we do at home. Take a weekend and pretend you are at a hotel, only you are in you PJ’s at home. No chores, no laundry, no business. Tell the kids you are on vacation and they heat up the frozen pizzas themselves for the weekend. Rent a bunch of chick-flick videos, give yourself a facial, and take naps.

7. Plan a fun unusual date with yourself. Do something you have always wanted to do. Drive by that new florist everyday and wondered what she has? Stop in. Always wanted to glaze some pottery at the you-glaze-it-yourself shop? Give it a try. Skinny dipping in the lake? Why not?

6. Plan a retreat. Pick up the phone and make a reservation for a weekend alone at a retreat center. Plan to spend time not talking, not being interrupted, not caring for others. Just be quiet and relax.

5. Get together with a girlfriend. Eat chocolate.

4. Take 1 hour and do something creative that you enjoy. Paint, write, dance, work in the garden. Make time for creativity.

3. Exercise. Plan some exercise which you really enjoy. Better yet, be outdoors if you can. Sun. Getting your heart pumping. It all make you relax more.

2. Make a “(insert your name here) Budget”. Make a budget of your time (like you would budget your money) which includes time for yourself. If every week you have an hour for something you enjoy you will begin to replenish yourself.

…And the #1 Idea of the

Top 10 Quick Tips for Moms to Reduce Stress….

1. Do it! You know what you need. In your deepest heart, you already know what is lacking for you and what would make you feel better. So do it. Whatever it is, find a way to give yourself what you need.

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Multitasking – The Stressful Truth

Woman Mutitasking with Baby, Laundry, Phone and IronA recent study published in the December 2011 issue of the American Sociological Review and described in USA Today shows that women do a lot of multitasking.  Working moms multitask more than working dads (48 hours vs. 39) and when they are home, they multitask more housework than working fathers (53% vs. 42%).  When multitasking involving childcare is calculated, working mothers beat working fathers once again (36% vs. 28%).

In fact, working moms spend two-fifths of their waking hours multitasking.

As a mother, this is not news to you.  You do the dishes as you help the kids with homework.  You play a game with the kids as you pay the bills.

But do you come out ahead?

Ann Bookman, from Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management, doesn’t think so.

As more and more women work full work schedules, they continue to do the bulk of childcare and housework.  Of course the work loads are more equal than they were years ago, but women still do the lion’s share.

This creates stress.

“This incredible focus on maximizing productivity at every moment has tremendous social and public health costs,” Bookman said. “…If you take a sample and very carefully analyze the numbers, you can begin to see in very graphic terms that women are still the primary caregivers and we are asking them to do just as much in the workforce.”

Women think they have it all figured out.  We just keep doing more.  To make this possible, we multitask.

But there is a price.

Stress takes a toll on your health, your relationships and your productivity.  You may think you’re getting more done, but eventually, you will crash.

The best way to relieve multitasking stress is to just do one thing at a time.  One thing.

Just do homework with your child.

Just do the dishes.

Just pay the bills.

Focus on being completely present with one task.

Of course you won’t get everything done but that is the point.  If you have to do two things at once, you’re doing too much.  When you do one thing at a time, you must prioritize the most important tasks and let the rest go undone.

This is not easy.  Many busy mothers believe that if they do less, they will let their families down.

How to End Multitasking

  • Ask for help.  Get spouses, friends, even your children to help out.
  • Simplify.  Prioritize your tasks and if something isn’t absolutely essential to your core values, let it go.
  • Say no.  Reduce your obligations to other people.
  • Take care of yourself first.  If you eat right, rest and exercise, you’ll be more productive when you do need to work.

When you multitask, you have the false impression that you are very productive.

Making the transition from multitasking to focusing on one task can be hard.  Start by making a commitment to spend 15 minutes tonight doing one thing.

How have you reduced your multitasking?

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Stressed Moms have Unique Challenges

The special role mothers have as caregivers both nurtures us and creates stressed moms.

Mothers are here to care for others.

We are hard wired to serve others. This trait makes our stress unique. Unlike other stressed people, when we need to reduce stress, we must not just disengage from our duties and responsibilities, but we must disengage from our natural inclination to care for those we love over the needs of ourselves.

Another way to view it: Caring for ourselves is one way to care for our loved ones.

Stressed mom pushing a grocery cartStressed Moms.

Stressed Moms are everywhere.

At the grocery store, a woman in business clothes pushes the cart with her 5 year old, trying to sound interested in the story about the cereal. The tensed lips, and the overly strong “Mommy really needs your cooperation now.” are the give-aways. She has 35 things to do before she gets home, and she is quickly feeling like she’s failing at all 35.

Our modern life has created this stressed mom, and while getting out of the cycle of stress is difficult for everyone, it is particularly difficult for a mother. The last thing she needs is to think that she must take a drawing class to relax. When would it be? Before or after the grocery store?

The Unique Problem of Stressed Moms:

  • We serve. We give. We help.
As mothers, our lives are designed with the needs of others first. And now that many mothers work outside the home, we give at the office and come home to give at home. We never get down time.
Mothers are made for this job, and can flourish in it. But modern life has pushed the demands to the maximum, while reducing the support to a stressed mom to a minimum. The system is bound to crash.
  • Because so many people rely on us, when a stressed mom needs to take time for herself, she feels like others will not get what they need in order for her to get what sheneeds.
How do you fit in a yoga class when the kids need to get to soccer?
This is a real and valid concern of stressed mothers, and adds to the level of stress.
Compound this with the statistic that around 25% of mothers are single, then the question about how to find time for oneself becomes even more vexing.
    • A mother’s brain is a never ending “things to do” list. Another way to say this is that a mother is never done with her chores. Unlike an executive who can complete a project, a stressed mom always has more to do. There is no project completion party.
    • As the snowball of stress grows, many mothers feel more stress delegating and instructing her family to help, than to do it. Lacking a system of help at home, many stressed moms just grow more stressed.
  • Like all mothers before us, moms are the heart of the family. Now, many mothers must be the brains at work as well.
When the mother’s world was closer to home, all of a mother’s tasks would have a theme of directly building the home for her family–growing food, cooking, mending clothes, teaching, raising the children, caring for the sick. She had one job description which predominantly involved more heart centered, right brain tasks.
Now mothers must often work outside the home. She must shift every morning and every evening from right brain to left, from heart to head. When her kids need to talk about their hard day, she must ignore her work deadline. And when she’s at work, she must focus on her job, and not on sick kids at home.
A work-outside-the-home mother’s life requires two opposing skills, and this is stressful. We can never do one skill completely.
  • A modern mother is disconnected from the woman’s community. Even stay-at-home-mothers do not have the companionship and support of other moms. My 80 year old friend tells me about how she would go to a fiend’s house and work together during the day to complete their tasks. For many women today, their closest women’s community is watching Oprah.
Mothers need each other to replenish themselves. When stressed moms get together, after a chat, some tea and cake, and some good girl-friend talk, they are often revived and ready to go home and work again. But few women get this support.

To find out more about Stressed Moms, please view the resources below.