Anxiety is a very real thing for all of us, especially mothers. There is nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about anxiety, we all have or will experience it. So here are 12 Anxiety tips for moms from a Family Therapist and mom of 5 to help you deal with anxiety.
This is meant to be more of a “daily program”. Don’t try to implement all the anxiety tips at once. Be patient with yourself. Find what works for you and your family. I truly believe these anxiety tips for moms help. I know they have helped me!
First, we need some background on our guest Family Therapist!
MARYANN’S INCREDIBLE STORY
MaryAnn Paligo is a family therapist in Colorado Springs, CO. She is married to her amazing husband and a mother of 3 boys and twin girls.
In 2019 MaryAnn experienced, first hand, real fear and anxiety as she nearly lost her life multiple times!
March 6th 2019 MaryAnn gave birth to her twin daughters! They were taken by C-section as MaryAnn had developed Preeclampsia (a very dangerous health risk for both mom and baby).
We all eagerly awaited news on Facebook. But when nothing came, we all became concerned. We were right to be.
Due to life threatening complications during her C-section, MaryAnn was placed in an induced coma. Her daughters were born at 32 weeks, five days, and had to be placed in the NICU.
The next few months MaryAnn fought for her life. She had multiple surgeries, including a liver transplant and her heart stopped more than once. The next few months after that MaryAnn fought to get home to her husband, 3 boys and twin girls who had left the NICU at 3 months old, healthy.
MaryAnn dealt with several setbacks. She would be transferred out of the Intensive Care Unit only to return the next day. Or she would go to the rehabilitation center only to return back to the hospital. Basic tasks were so difficult for her as her strength was gone.
On October 11, 2019, after over 7 months of intensive care and rehabilitation, MaryAnn came home to her family! She is still working hard daily to gain back her strength.
The pain, fear and anxiety I feel just thinking about her situation overwhelms me. But MaryAnn came out of it with gratitude for her nurses and doctors, her family and God and a desire to help others.
MaryAnn began to post daily anxiety tips on her Facebook page after her ordeal to help her friends and other mother’s deal with the very real anxieties, we all face, especially during Covid-19 Corona Virus.
With her permission I’m posting her anxiety tips for moms here in hopes that they can reach and help more people. These are her words:
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01 CHECK YOUR THOUGHTS
So, today’s tip starts with a way too personal story. When my second child was almost a year old, I had some postpartum depression. I didn’t catch it. I’m a therapist and treat people with depression. And I didn’t catch it in myself until much later!
I had thoughts like “my sister would be a better mom to my kids” and “maybe my kids would be better off without me”. Those are suicidal thoughts, ladies! Please be aware of your thoughts.
Check in with yourself throughout the day. Are you having thoughts of suicide or self-harm? If so, please reach out to someone. Sometimes chatting with a friend is enough. Sometimes it’s not, and you need to call a professional.
Many counselors are doing sessions via video conferencing and would be happy to help you. (I’m not currently treating clients) Suicide hotlines can help. There are lots of resources out there. Please don’t be embarrassed or too shy to ask for help!
[P]lease check in with your thoughts several times a day! Stay mentally healthy as well as physically healthy
02 BREATHE
When we feel anxious, stressed, worried, etc., our bodies respond with the “fight or flight” response. This is an automatic response your body uses to try to protect itself.
Consider the following example: you are carrying a handful of papers down the stairs. Suddenly, you lose your footing. Papers fly everywhere and your one hand catches the railing while the other hand lands on the stairs, softening your hard crash onto your backside.
Now, did you consciously think “okay, in order to catch myself, I’m going to throw my papers all over, move my hand to the railing and my other hand to the stairs”?
No, of course not! Your brain takes the oxygen from your frontal lobe, where we do our thinking, and sends it to the rest of your body in order to have faster reflexes!
Great for survival! Terrible for anxiety! So, stop what you’re doing, close your eyes, and just breathe for a few minutes. Concentrate on your breathing and let the other stuff go. Get some oxygen back into your thinking brain.
03 GROUNDING
Grounding is a technique used in counseling to help calm our emotions and re-center ourselves. There are many ways to do this, but my personal favorite (and a super easy one) is to focus on each of your five senses.
Take a minute and do this with me. We use our sense of sight so much, so we’ll start with the others. Close your eyes and focus on what you can feel. Can you feel your clothes? Socks? The carpet beneath your feet? Is it soft? Rough? Warm or cold? Focus on feeling it for a couple minutes.
Next, what can you hear? Really listen. Can you hear the hum of the refrigerator? A car drive by or a bird outside? The wind? Is it loud or quiet? Soothing or maybe annoying? Just focus on it for a bit.
Next focus on what you can smell. Just smell. I can smell fajitas and laundry detergent. What can you smell? How do you feel smelling it?
Taste. What taste can you experience right now? Just taste it and think about tasting it. I can taste chocolate. It’s sweet and warm and makes me smile. How would you describe your taste?
Now move to your eyes. And really look. What do you notice? Can you find something you’ve never noticed before or haven’t noticed in a while? Find a detail in a patterned item or look at the rounded vs squared edges of furniture. I can see raindrops on my window. They’re shiny and round.
As you focus your senses, your body relaxes and allows your mind to calm a bit. Hope this exercise helps!
04 DO SOMETHING
That’s all. Do something. Often, we get caught up in our thoughts and worries and we circle around and around and around… You get the picture.
To break that cycle, do something. Anything. Stand up and stretch and feel the muscles in your body. Go for a walk (even if it’s just to a different part of your house).
Create something. Open a window and feel the breeze. Roll around on the floor with your child or dog. Build a puzzle. Clean the bathroom mirror that’s been bugging you. Do something.
Please don’t: engage in more screen time, read more stats about Corona Virus, sit there and read everyone’s posts on Facebook/Instagram/etc and compare your life to theirs. Do something.
05 ANSWER THE “WHAT IF”
[This] is something I learned from a very wise man ( Paul H. Jenkins ). He taught me that anxiety is often a big question of “What if?”
So today we’re going to address the question. So, what if? What if [insert your very worst-case scenario here] happened? What would you do? Where would you go? Who would you call?
It might help to get it a piece of paper or a journal, or pull up a new word doc, and write down what the scenario is and then what exactly you would do.
Then guess what? You just solved your very worst-case problem! Congratulations! You can do this! If you can solve that, you can solve the rest.
I realize that often our anxiety has lots of “What ifs”, (did I just get that punctuation correct?), but for today, just focus on this one.
And don’t forget to let yourself feel good about solving the situation. I hope that helps someone today!
06 FEELINGS ARE JUST FEELINGS
What I mean by that is that feelings aren’t “good” or “bad”. They just are. It’s okay to have any feeling! It’s what we DO with those feelings that we can judge “good” or “bad”.
Emotions start in our brains and are caused by chemical reactions. It’s perfectly fine to feel frustrated, anxious, sad, and yes, even angry!
Can you imagine life without those feelings? It would be pretty dull! Emotions help us interpret the world around us.
So, here’s what I want you to do. Let yourself feel your feels. Feel it, label it, and then decide what you want to do with it.
If we stifle the unpleasant feelings, they tend to bother us until they explode! So take a minute and let yourself feel the feelings! (And then label and chose actions!).
Hope everyone is staying mentally and physically healthy!
07 CONTROL
There are so many things in the world that we have no control over. When our thoughts focus on those things, we feel out of control and anxious!
The trick to calming that down is to focus on what we do have control over. So in this weird and unpredictable situation we are all in right now [Covid-19 quarantine], what do you have control over?
Here are some things I like to think I’m in control of, but feel free to add more…if you want.
- Where I go or don’t go
- Washing hands and sanitizing regularly
- What I do with my time
- My attitude
- How I respond to others, including the media
- How often I sanitize my doorknobs and light switches (a lot)
- My tone of voice while speaking to my children, even when I’m feeling stressed or tired
..Next…I’ll add more about how to change those thoughts from things you can’t control to things you can control. Hope this helps someone today!
08 CHANGING YOUR THOUGHTS
Last time I talked about focusing on what you have control over. If it’s something you don’t have control over, focusing on that can cause anxiety. So how do we change those thoughts?
One way is to identity the problem using an “I statement.” “I statements” are simply sentences that begin with “I”.
When I ask my kid what is wrong, he says “he hit me.” Well, unfortunately, you don’t have control over the other person. So that’s not your problem.
Re-stating the problem in terms you control helps you solve the problem.
“I got kicked” is the same thing that happened, but stating it differently changes your perspective and gives you a sense of control over the situation, opening up possibilities for solutions.
It puts the ball back in your court.
So, try it for a few days and see what you think!
09 BE KIND TO YOURSELF
It’s super easy to focus on what “needs to be fixed” or what is “wrong”. When we focus on these things, it’s really easy to forget that there are things that are “right” and “don’t need to be fixed”!
So, when we start to feel anxious and we think about all the things that are wrong, it adds fuel to the anxiety (and depression).
So, take a minute and think of the things you are doing RIGHT. Things that are going well. Things you’ve already accomplished.
A glaring example from my own life: I was in the hospital + rehab for 7 months last year. There were 3-4 months when I couldn’t even sit up unassisted. And now, I am much, much stronger!
But not as strong as I used to be. And so, I get frustrated very easily when I physically can’t do what I think I should be able to do.
I have to constantly say to myself “remember when you couldn’t even sit up?”
So, what have you accomplished? What is going well? Small and simple things are the best things to celebrate!
10 CREATE HEALTHY SLEEP HABITS
[R]amp up your sleep care. What I mean by this is that it’s very easy to get caught up in the craziness of life and get out of our routines regarding sleep. But now is the time we really need healthy sleep habits.
If you’re struggling with sleep, here are some ideas that might help:
01 Have a bedtime routine that is consistent every night, relaxes your mind and body (don’t watch distressing news and then expect to drop right into restful sleep; do turn off distressful news, take a relaxing bath and read something that brings you peace)
02 Check your bedroom hygiene- your mattress, pillows, sheets, air temp, etc. Are you comfortable? A scratchy pillowcase is easily replaced and for much cheaper than years of therapy.
03 Try to go to bed around the same time each evening and wake up around the same time each morning. Circadian rhythms are super important for healthy sleep.
11 EXERCISE
[N]ame that movie!!!
“Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands, they just don’t.”
Wanna be a happy person who doesn’t shoot their spouse?
Okay, joking aside, exercise has been proven to be a natural anti-depressant.
While we’re discussing anxiety specifically, depression and anxiety are often found holding hands, and anti-depressants often help with anxiety as well. (I don’t claim to be an expert on medications).
So, challenge yourself today to try some new type of exercise. There are so many options for free outside or online. I think my favorite is Pilates- I love that stretching, lengthening feeling!
But even a quick walk around the block or doing stairs can get your heart rate up and give you the endorphin rush to counteract negative feelings.
[E]veryone is different- some people find that easily and others have to do an intense workout to get the results they hope for.
But NOT exercising does NOT give you extra endorphins.
12 GRATITUDE
I keep thinking about a specific example from Corrie ten Boom’s book “The Hiding Place”. Corrie and her sister were sent to a concentration camp that was pretty nasty.
Her sister reminded her that the Bible tells them to give thanks in all circumstances, not just pleasant circumstances.
So, they pray and give thanks, including thanking God for the fleas. Later they discover the reason they’ve been given more freedom (including hiding their contraband Bible and meeting together with the other women) was because the guards didn’t want to come in their dorm because of the fleas!
Being grateful helped her get through her difficult situation.
Regardless of your religious beliefs, an “attitude of gratitude” can help change perspective during challenges. You don’t even have to have specific things to be grateful FOR, just simply feeling grateful can counteract unwelcome feelings. Give it a try!
UPDATE ON MARYANN, MARCH 6TH, 2020
1 YEAR!!! One year since my babies were born! One year since my liver ruptured! One year since our lives were turned upside down! One year of miracles, trials, operations, medications, doctors, growth, stress, prayers, and being on the receiving end of endless service.
I’m getting stronger every day. I can almost walk up a flight of stairs without holding the railing. I can carry one baby up the stairs if she’s awake. It takes me a minute… But I can do it!
I keep catching every little thing that goes around, so I’ve been in and out of the hospital lately. I’m being monitored very carefully by my liver team in Aurora. I’m still on dialysis three times a week, but my kidneys are regaining function.
I’m moving forward with getting on the kidney transplant list as well as praying they heal enough to stop dialysis soon!
I’ve finally stopped losing weight and mostly stabilized, although eating is still a struggle some days. The vomiting has calmed down quite a bit though, thank goodness!
My husband and kids have been amazing through all of this. I’m impressed every day by their resilience and strength as well as their willingness to help me and support me.
I’m so blessed. Thank you so much for your continued prayers, love, and support. I am deeply grateful!
CONCLUSION
I’m amazed by MaryAnn’s strength and example! Her desire to help others with her 12 anxiety tips for moms despite her own trials is so inspiring. I think she needs to write a book. I’d buy it!
I have personally used many of her anxiety tips for moms with the change Covid-19 has brought to my family. They are simple but very powerful and they work! I know they can help you too and I hope they do!
Check out this post on making time for your kids when you have no time, to help defeat your children’s anxiety. Also this post on positive parenting techniques that can help you and your children make your home a peaceful place.
Please comment with your own anxiety tips, experiences or just a shout out to MaryAnn!
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