Emotional Health

Emotional health for mothers is a very important topic that deserves a lot of attention! Our emotional health affects every part of our lives. It impacts the way we think, the way we behave, and our physical health. However, how do we keep and maintain good emotional health as mothers? In this article, we will learn what impacts our emotional health, what we can do to keep good emotional health, and when to seek out professional help. Let’s get to it!

What Impacts Our Emotional Health

First, we need to understand that every part of our body affects the other parts. They are interconnected! Our minds impact our feelings. Have you ever been doing dishes or breastfeeding your baby and all of a sudden realize your thoughts are all negative? Dwelling on negative thoughts increases your heart rate, may make you feel anxious or worried, and might even cause your appetite to decrease. Obviously, your mind has a huge impact on your physical body! Let’s dig into these topics a little further.

1. Lack Of Energy

This one ranks very high on what impacts emotional health. Mothers are probably some of the most exhausted people on the planet! Finding a healthy way to boost your energy will have a positive affect on your emotional life.

However, instead of turning to coffee or other caffeine sources, why not try a natural approach to boosting energy?

Essential oils are a fantastic way to naturally bring clarity of thought, decrease stress, promote overall wellness in the body, and even sharpen mental function!

Read my article Top 15 Essential Oils To Boost Energy Levels to learn more!

2. Our Thoughts

Secondly, in understanding what impacts our emotional health, we need to understand our minds are powerful. What we spend our time thinking about will impact the way we feel and behave. So those who think on positive things will live in a more positive way. Likewise, people who think on negative things and things that aggravate them will make them more irritable.

As mothers, it is SO easy to have negative thoughts. Whiney children, a screaming infant, an extreme lack of sleep, and handling all the other demands of life are enough to keep your mind in the dumps!

Also, it’s very common for mothers to have anxious thoughts regarding their lives and children. I surveyed a group of women (all mothers) and discovered some common negative thoughts mothers have.

Common Negative Thoughts Among Mothers

1. Will this last forever?
2. Why can’t I be a better mom?
3. I feel like I’m never doing enough for my children.
4. I’m not as good as other mothers.
5. I feel guilt for taking time for myself.
6. If I wasn’t so emotional, my children would be able to handle their emotions better.
7. Worry that you’re going to ruin your children.

Can you relate to any of the above thoughts? If so, you are in good company! No, you’re not the only one who has that thought =)

Additionally, intrusive negative thoughts were also VERY common among this group of mothers in my survey. Here are some of their common intrusive thoughts:

Common Intrusive Negative Thoughts Among Mothers

1. Something happening to me and my children won’t be cared for.
2. The house catching on fire and worrying if I can save everyone.
3. Our car landing in a body of water and wondering if I will be able to save everyone.
4. I might accidentally drop my baby and hurt her.

Why am I telling you these common negative thoughts? First of all, you will know that you are NOT alone in how you think and feel as a mother! Personally, I think some of these thoughts root from a deep love and concern for your children. Moreover, I believe these thoughts show that you are a very loving and concerned mother!

Secondly, what we want to look out for is the negative impact these thoughts may have on our overall health! It’s okay to have negative or concerned thoughts, but we don’t want to stay there. Also, we don’t want those negative thoughts impacting the way we live or behave! We want to move on to positive thoughts and think on what is true in our lives. Below I walk you through how to do this.

Reframing Your Thoughts

So how can we keep our minds thinking positive thoughts? We need to practice reframing our thoughts. What is “reframing” our thoughts? How do we do that? Simply put, reframing our thoughts is thinking about something in the positive instead of the negative.

For example, one common negative thoughts mothers have is “I’m not good enough” or “Why can’t I be a better mom?” These thoughts are in the negative. Now, let’s reframe them and think in the positive. It could sound something like this, “I may not know a lot about XYZ, but I’m learning and growing every day!” or, “I am doing the best I can for my children, and that is all I can expect of myself.”

Affirmations For Mothers

If you find yourself frequently thinking negative thoughts or have a hard time keeping our thoughts positive, read these affirmations for mothers!

There are well over 30 positive affirmations created specifically for mothers. Reading these every day for a full month will help you think positively! When you do something every day for 28 days in a row, it becomes a habit.

If you are serious about training your mind to think positive thoughts, take one of these affirmations for mothers each day. Be intentional in replacing your negative thoughts with that positive affirmation for that day. Eventually, your brain will be trained to think in a healthy way, which will affect the rest of your body! Additionally, you will feel less stressed, more energetic, happier, and may even have improved sleep!

Benefits Of Thinking One Positive Affirmation For Mothers Each Day For 28 Days

1. Feel less stressed
2. Have more energy
3. Boost in happiness
4. Improved sleep
5. Put your energy towards more important things (i.e. children, planning the week, cooking, etc.)

Click below to read the affirmations for mothers!

3. Quality Of Sleep

Undoubtedly, we all have experienced those nights where you lay in bed wide awake for hours because something is bothering or concerning you. During the night, your thoughts run around like crazy and you can’t seem to get them under control.

How is your sleep on nights like that? Not very restful, right? Let’s talk about what you can do to get better sleep.

How To Get Better Sleep

First, I would suggest reframing your thoughts using the affirmations for mothers. Take one every day for 30 days. Be intentional to replace your negative thoughts with that positive affirmation! The extra ease of mind you gain will have a positive impact on your quality of sleep.

Second, get moving! Even if it’s just a 10-15 minute walk a day. When your body is in motion, blood flows. This helps your body get the toxins and “stress” built up in your muscles out! It also clears your mind and leaves you feeling refreshed. Also, when you exercise, you sleep better!

Finally, there are some other great tools to help you get better sleep as well. I recommend using essential oils and a super quality pillow to help bring natural relaxation and good quality of sleep to your body. I discuss all of this in detail in my article, Tips For Better Sleep For Mothers.

Click below to read my article on ways mothers can get better sleep!

4. Stress

43% of all adults suffer adverse health affects from stress.

www.webmd.com

Stress has a HUGE impact on our emotional health! Indeed, stress impacts our entire beings – mental, physical and spiritual! Here’s what stress does to the body:

1. Arthritis
2. Anxiety
3. Asthma
4. Depression
5. Diabetes
6. Headaches
7. Heart issues
8. High blood pressure
9. Panic attacks (with strong stress)
10. Shortness of breath
11. Skin issues
12. Muscle tension

Chronic stress, or a constant stress experienced over a prolonged period of time, can contribute to long-term problems for heart and blood vessels.

American Psychological Association

We as mothers know there is a limitless source of stress in our lives. Newborns crying, kids being sick, the house isn’t clean, you need to go shopping but can’t find the time, appointments, work, etc. If not kept in check, stress can reek havoc on your body!

Obviously, letting stress go unchecked in our lives can give us a ton of health issues, as seen in the list above. Chronic stress can do even more damage to our bodies and our quality of life! It’s my job to help you stay far away from those issues. Let’s learn how we can minimize stress in order to keep ourselves healthy!

Check out my article or click the button below to learn more!

5. Exercise Lifestyle

What do I mean by lifestyle? I mean, the kind of life you live. Your day-to-day activities. Are you someone whose lifestyle is to sit a lot of the time? Maybe your job requires that of you. Similarly, maybe you have a newborn who needs to be breastfed a lot.

Contrarily, do you have a very active lifestyle? Do you go on jogs, walk the dog, or engage in other kinds of physical activity? Why exercise? What are the benefits? Below are just a few.

Benefits Of Regular Exercise

1. Increased cardiovascular (heart) health
2. Decreased risk of stroke
3. Strengthens muscles and bones
4. Increases balance (which means you’re less likely to hurt yourself by falling accidentally)
5. Lowers hypertension
6. Reduces body fat
7. Improves mental health

Would you like these health benefits in your life?

If you desire to be more active but don’t know how, there are some great at-home programs for mothers. I have looked into some of these for you and included them in my article, Great Exercise Programs For Moms. (Coming Soon!)

Learn more by clicking below!

Emotional Health – Benefits That Motivate You To Exercise!

Not a fan of exercise? There are many reasons why you should be! If you need motivators to get up and moving, read this article on Benefits That Motivate You To Exercise! You’ll learn several really neat benefits exercise brings to your body, and you’ll be motivated and inspired to start walking or doing what you enjoy as exercise.

Check out this article by clicking below!

How To Exercise When You Have No Time To Exercise

Ok, so you know exercise is important to your health. Perhaps you even really want to start exercising, but you struggle to find time to fit yet another thing into your day! I understand! I’m, and many other mothers, are in that same boat!

That’s why I have created this sweet and simple article for you, 6 Tips To Exercise When You Have No Time To Exercise. You’ll learn how you can fit exercise into the most simplest tasks you do every day. The best part is it will take little to no extra time on your part!

Click the button below to read this article!

How To Improve Your Emotional Health

We’ve talked about what impacts our emotional health. This includes, but is not limited to our thoughts, the quality of sleep we get, stress, and the type of lifestyle we have.

Furthermore, let’s talk about other practical ways we can improve our emotional health.

1. Accepting Your New Identity

The moment our babies come into the world, it should be the happiest moment in our lives. Undoubtedly, for most of us it truly is, until reality hits a few days or weeks later.

Obviously so much changes as we enter motherhood. A lot of it takes us by surprise and leaves us kind of shaking in the wind! We go from being totally free to having no freedom just like that. One day we can go shopping for clothes, stay up late and watch a movie, or sleep in. Shortly after baby is born, that ALL changes. That change is harder for some mothers than it is for others. However, let’s be honest. That change is hard for ALL mothers!

In a survey I took of young mothers, one of them stated this about motherhood.

Loss of identity. Not knowing who you are and mourning who you used to be and scared of who you will be.

Lily

Can you relate to Lily? Undoubtedly many, or all of us, can! I think she stated it very well. All of us mothers experience a loss of identity. We are no longer that single, free woman. And for some (or most), that change can feel like a loss.

When my second child was about 3 months old, my husband would try to give me free time to do whatever I wanted to do. I remember just staring at him…thinking. “It’s like I don’t know who I am anymore,” I told him. “I feel like I’ve lost touch with who I am because I care for other people 24/7.”

If you want to learn more about how to love your new identity as a mother, read my article Accepting Your New Identity As Mom. I talk more in depth about this topic and give you ideas to help you learn to love your new self and role in life. Click below to read more!

2. Hobbies For Moms

Another great way to improve our emotional health as mothers is to carve out time for ourselves throughout the week. I have written an article, Hobbies For Moms, to help you do this! Please note that “mom hobbies” is totally not the same as “boring hobbies”! You may find some of the hobbies in my article very exciting and refreshing.

Also, in this article I share with you which hobbies I picked up once I entered motherhood, and how I enjoyed them! Click below to read more.

3. Building Resiliency

The change from going from a free single woman to a mother is a drastically huge change! I don’t believe this topic is discussed enough among moms. Some mothers have voiced to me that they feel like death or suicide is the only way out of this “new normal”. Additionally, the change in life and the new demands placed on them as a mother is too much that it makes them want to quit life.

Markedly, this is why having good resiliency is so important. What is resiliency? It is the ability to jump back to a stable state after going through a huge change or shock in life.

Picture a young tree. The trunk may not be very large or strong yet, but the tree might be decently tall. When a strong storm comes, the tree will sway and bend in the wind. However, if the tree has good resiliency, it will return to its normal straight position.

We want to be like that tree as mothers. The demands and change in life will make us bend this way and that. Sometimes we may even feel like breaking! Although, if we have good resiliency, we will remain strong and tall in the end. We will be able to return back to a steady mental and emotional state.

Resiliency is the ability to jump back to a stable state after going through a huge change or shock in life.

Motherhood, Baby and Me

How do we build good resiliency as mothers? Learn all about it in my article, Building Resiliency In Motherhood. Click below to read my article!

4. Building Your Support Network

Equally important to keeping good emotional health for mothers is having a good support network. Now, in case you don’t know what I mean by a support network let me explain.

Think of a net that acrobats use. Why is it there? Obviously for protection, right? If the acrobats were to fall during one of their stunts, the net is there to catch them. As mothers, we need that net in our lives. Especially if we want to keep good emotional health!

Moreover, what is that “net” in our lives? It is the people who are there for us when we need them the most. They are there to catch us when we fall. Also, they give us advice, help, or a break when we need it.

Who are those people in your life? Find them and reach out to them for help when you need it.

Finally, to learn more about building your support network in motherhood, you can read my article by clicking the button below!

5. Getting Professional Help (Coming Soon!)

Finally in our discussion in good emotional health for mothers, when to seek out professional help. There is no shame in reaching out for help when you need it. When I was dealing with my infant who screamed for 8hrs/day every day for months, plus she was up 3-4 times a night, I almost called 9-1-1 one day for help because I was about to go crazy!

When should you seek professional help? Always talk to your doctor with anything that concerns you with your body or emotional health. Additionally, be sure to contact your doctor if you are experiencing any of the following:

1. Anxiety that keeps you from being able to do your normal daily activities (i.e. getting out of bed, cooking, cleaning, caring for your family, etc.)
2. You are crying a lot (more than just a normal emotional release from daily demands)
3. Feeling depressed
4. Trouble bonding to or loving your baby

Call 9-1-1 if you:

1. Feel like harming yourself
2. Want to harm your baby
3. Don’t want to live anymore

Free 24/7 help

National Maternal Mental Health Hotline. The National Maternal Mental Health Hotline provides 24/7, free, confidential support before, during, and after pregnancy.

Their number: Call or text 1-833-943-5746 (1-833-9-HELP4MOMS)

National Parent Helpline

The National Parent Helpline is not a 24/7 service, but they do offer emotional support for parents and caregivers of children and youth of all ages. Their hours are Monday through Friday 10am-7pm.

Their number is 1-855-427-2736

Finally, to learn more about when to seek professional help, click the button below! (Coming Soon!)

Also Check Out

Be sure to check out the article 6 Ways To Know You Are A Good Mom. This is a unique article as you need to fill out a form to read it. However, it would be beneficial to your emotional health as many mothers struggle with the feeling of not being good enough.