Stress Management for Moms 

Visitors to this website often ask about stress management for moms.  Being a “Mom” is a job for life, 24/7, and how you handle the responsibility is dependent on many things.  There are work responsibilities that have to be handled independently from personal responsibilities with family members and friends.  Trying to juggle everything within a limited amount of time is always a major challenge.  Stress management for Mothers becomes a balancing act between other's demands and your own self identity.  Women are often conflicted between pursuing their own aspirations or putting these goals on hold while attending to their life priorities of raising kids.  Consider these four perspectives as you address your job as “Mom.”

Be True to Yourself

Stop and take a long look in the mirror.  What do you see?  Is this a woman who is comfortable with who she is and know where she is going?  Or is this a woman in conflict?  Stress management for women often involves knowing who you are—in other words being comfortable in your own skin.  You will find at any given time in your life you will assume a variety of different roles, such as wife, cook, housekeeper, nanny, taxi driver, career professional, and friend.  The amount of time you dedicate to each role changes as kids grow and leave the nest.

Create A Set of Personal Goals

Next in the stress management for moms program, establish your own personal goals based on life priorities.  Knowing what matters in life and creating a directional path to attain your own goals helps keep you balanced during the stressful times that come along.  One of the best stress management tools  is using your inner compass to chart your own life course.  Embracing 3-4 SMART Goals helps you make decisions about which tasks are more important to address and when it’s appropriate to say “no” to certain requests for assistance.  As a mom, you can’t do it all.

Build a Network of Support

A support network of trusted friends and family members is very helpful for moms.  Spending all of your time with young children can become isolating. Stress can increase if you are not able to interact with the world around you.  

Stress management for moms includes regular communication with a variety of enriching and non-judgmental peers. Those you choose should provide support during both stressful and happy times.  Seek to surround yourself with like-minded women who share your core values.  Return the favor by being a good friend to your friends.

Maintain a Positive Inner Voice

There is nothing worse than playing the comparison game with other women.  There will always be some mom who is more efficient, prettier, thinner, richer, or seemingly happier than you.  If you fall into a comparison game, rev up your gratuity journal.  

Journal writing is a great tool to maintain your perspective and stop any self-depreciating comments that start within your head.  If you are allowing negativity to affect your life, write down the common negative comments and notice recurring patterns.  List the comments and rewrite them into positive affirmations.  This can take some practice, but keep working at changing negative comments into more positive statements.

Stress management for moms includes being happy with the way you are without criticizing yourself for not being perfect.

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