Hellobee

Being a parent is the single most stressful and anxiety-inducing thing I’ve done in my life (and I went to law school). For me, the adjustment period has been a long road. Little Cotton Candy is almost four, and I would say it took me at least three years from his birth for me to really feel like I had a handle on how to control my stress and anxiety from parenting, work, and life.

I try to keep in mind that it’s always a journey. For those who struggle with anxiety (and even those who don’t), there are always going to be bad days and times when you feel like a failure as a parent, employee, spouse, daughter, whatever. But after some trial and error, I’ve stumbled on a few things that help me keep parenting-induced stress and anxiety in check.

Here are a few things that have helped, and some that haven’t.

5 Ways I Manage Stress & Anxiety As a Parent

1. Therapy.

For the first time in my life, I started seeing a therapist once a month or so. It wasn’t anything desperate or over-the-top that triggered me to seek one out. In fact, it was just a feeling of “something is not right” that I had one night while I was trying to sleep. The feeling was hard to pinpoint, but I knew I wanted to try and get to the bottom of it because it unsettled me.

Once I found a therapist I could trust, I was able to have a safe space to process my thoughts and feelings without judgment, and I gained some new tools for dealing with stress and anxiety. A couple of key things I learned: a) feelings are not “bad” or “good,” so there is no need to try and suppress emotions that aren’t happy (basically, “feel all the feels”). b) it’s important to expressly empathize with people (including children), and also to not play the guessing game when it comes to how others around you are feeling c) everyone struggles, and no one has it all figured out, so forgive yourself when you make a mistake.

It helps to have a therapist who is also a mom to a young child, as it’s easy for us to relate; I truly wish I had sought out a group therapy for new moms when Little Cotton Candy was a baby, as I think it could have made the transition easier for me.

2. Yoga.

I have been doing yoga on and off for over a decade, and the one thing that’s constant is how amazing it makes me feel. It’s the one physical activity I do because I truly love it, not because I feel like I “should.” There are so many health benefits to yoga; it keeps me flexible and strong, it calms me down when I am stressed, and improves my mood when I am overtired and grumpy. My favorite place to find yoga workouts is the Yoga with Adrienne YouTube channel. Her motto is “find what feels good,” and her whole approach is so forgiving, loving, and gentle. She has a fun thirty day yoga camp, which is a great place to start if you’re considering getting into yoga. She’s also got a video called Yoga for Anxiety, which is a great resource for busy, stressed out moms. I’m also a fan of Daily Burn, and they have a great yoga instructor and lots of workouts for a small monthly fee.

3. Deep Breathing.

Nothing calms me down in a moment of parent-induced anxiety, stress, or anger better than deep breathing. If I feel like I’m starting to be swept up in a wave of anxiety, I force myself to pause what I’m doing and take deep breaths through my nose, out my mouth. I have Little Cotton Candy do this with me, too, especially if we are out in public and his behavior starts to get a little wild. (You know those little kids’ carts at Trader Joe’s? Every single time we go there, Little CC has to push one, and it always ends with me threatening to leave the store if he doesn’t slow down and watch where he is going.) A few “yoga” breaths, and we are both more relaxed and can move on with our day. Little Cotton Candy especially likes doing the “lion’s breath,” and sometimes he likes to be silly and take a deep breath, then blow a raspberry. Either way, it distracts him from what he was doing and brings some positivity into our day.

4. Happiness Journaling.

I haven’t done a traditional happiness journal where you write a sentence or two every day on something positive in your life (as Rubin recommends in her book The Happiness Project), but I do a few things in the happiness journaling realm. First, I keep a happiness jar where I jot down a happy thing anytime something comes to mind. I started this project with two of my lifelong BFFs, and we open our jars together over Skype once a quarter or so and read the slips of paper to each other. It sounds cheesy, but it’s really great. Second, I have this journal where I answer a prompt every day for five years; I just started it this year, so it will be interesting to see what it looks like down the road! Finally, in a small online group that I head up, I prompt the members weekly for a “mid week happy” to get all of us thinking about the positive things in our life. Some weeks it is a struggle to pinpoint a particular thing, and other weeks I am bursting with happy news I want to share.

I don’t know if there is a clear link between writing down things that make you happy and relieving stress/anxiety, but I feel like it’s made a positive impact on my life.

5. ASMR.

Okay, this one might out me as a total weirdo, but I discovered ASMR (stands for autonomic sensory meridian response) a couple of years ago, and I keep coming back to it to put me in a peaceful, relaxed frame of mind. To sum up, ASMR is the tingly feeling in the scalp and sometimes down the spine that some people get in response to certain triggers, such as whispered talking, tapping, crinkling, or other sounds. There are so many amazing ASMR artists on YouTube. Some of my favorites are Gentle Whispering, Olivia Kissper, ASMR Requests, and Fairy Char. These artists create relaxing, ASMR-triggering sounds and visuals to relax you and help you sleep. I like to listen at night before falling asleep, and I wear SleepPhones because I can lie down while wearing them comfortably.

Some Things That Didn’t Work

1. Eating My Feelings.

Okay, so technically, eating lots of sugary carbs after Little Cotton Candy goes to bed does make me feel better in the short term, but I know it’s not a long-term solution for managing my anxiety. With a tummy full of junk, I have no desire to do yoga, and I wake up the next morning feeling overtired and bloaty. I still occasionally reach for the donuts, but I’m doing my best to curb the late-night snack attacks.

2. Adult Coloring Books.

I received some colored pencils and the Harry Potter Coloring book as a present this past Christmas and was so excited about it! Then I put off opening it for months and months. I finally broke out the book and pencils and I found it…boring. Not relaxing. I might give it another try, or I might just wait until Little Cotton Candy is older and pass it on to him.

Anyone else struggle with anxiety? What do you do to cope?