Being a parent can feel overwhelming at times. As a parent, practicing good self-care can feel about as likely as winning the lottery. But here’s the thing: Taking care of yourself makes you a better parent – and helps your children become better humans.
So, Home-Start has put together some self-care suggestions to help you stay relaxed during hectic times.
What is self-care?
Self-care is about the things we can do to look after our own physical, emotional and mental health. Self-care doesn’t have to involve a huge time commitment and it doesn’t have to cost the earth. It could be taking a bath, relaxing with a good book, taking a walk outside or eating your favourite food. It’s about making a commitment to putting yourself first, even just for a while.
By taking some time for yourself, you will feel better equipped to care for your family. Self-care isn’t a selfish act, it’s a necessity, especially in this busy world we now live.
Why do we need to practice self-care?
According to Google Trends, the number of times people searched for ‘self-care’ in the last year has doubled since 2015. The duty of taking care of ourselves is important and more and more people are looking for advice on this. The act of looking after yourself is not to be mistaken for being selfish but is in fact all about taking care of yourself so that you can be the healthiest and happiest you. When we feel our best on the inside it fuels us and helps us to be fit and energised to look after others around us. So, this makes self-care essential for parents!
Getting started
You might not be used to remembering to do little things for yourself or perhaps feel like you don’t have the time for self-care. This is why we have tried to keep things simple and let you decide what works for you from the calendar. Just choose one activity from our suggestions and start there. Over time you might want to try another activity, gradually adding into your weekly or daily routine. The most important thing is to keep it simple.
Maybe you always have a quiet gap in your afternoon where you have a moment to plug some earphones in and listen to a podcast, or arrange a daytrip for your weekend, or perhaps you want to make time in the morning to do something for yourself like trying out yoga at home! You can pic ‘n’ mix with our list of self-care activities but you might find you really like reading your book or daily journaling and decide that you want to make particular activities a habit. They hopefully aren’t too time-consuming and something that you can add into your daily routine.
Prioritising time for yourself with relaxing activities helps to reduce symptoms of stress and anxiety and in general, makes you feel better about things. We encourage anyone who has come across this post to use our self-care calendar.
It is great to hear what our supporters and families are up to, so if you take part in any of our suggested self-care activities feel free to share with us your favourites. You might have your own self-care suggestions for us to try too!
Happy self-care, enjoy – you deserved it!
