We’re wrapped in commitments each day without breaks and when something changes, the calendar entries fall like dominoes. Rescheduling becomes a herculean task so, we never feel caught up. It’s not surprising to decide that vacation must be the answer. Like patiently waiting for rain to stop, the idea of a sanctioned pause can become a recurring fantasy. But after all of that planning and waiting, your vacation may not be the break you hoped for.
I’m not saying don’t take vacations, you should as often as possible. However, please don’t expect a few weeks in Shangri-La each year to provide the reset you’re looking for. There is a better way.
Vacations are Often Underutilized
Here’s the deal, only 60% of Americans even have paid time off (PTO) and whether you’re an entrepreneur or work for an employer, it can be financially and emotionally expensive to pause professionally. Even for a week or three. In the US, we receive less PTO than parents in other countries yet nearly half of those fortunate to have it, don’t even take all of it, and nearly one quarter, don’t take any.
And Vacations Can Go Sideways
If you live far away from your family of origin or in-laws, then many of your vacations will become family visits by necessity. Time with family is a gift but, you may not emerge as rested as you’d like. Making group decisions or navigating the logistics and family dynamics can also be exhausting.
You also can’t predict other challenges during that one precious window allocated for relaxation. Like illness, a lumpy mattress, noisy hotel neighbors, or rain on your beach days.
Augment Them with Daily Routines
Even when they are perfect, you still can’t go on vacation all the time. Stress for moms has been rising. Mental health, and self-care, in all of the ways we measure it remains down. So, the magic is in building a life with breaks and time for restoration every day.
It can’t be episodic or connected to perfect conditions. Learn to benefit from practices you can savor when the to-do list, stress levels, and pace feel unsustainable.
Movement is Magic
In our research studies, exercise is always within the top 3 most requested forms of self-care. Of course, it’s not exactly new information that moving our bodies regularly, is essential. You probably learned exercise is important for short- and long-term health back in kindergarten.
Because it improves mood, memory, sleep, and strength, but the challenge for mothers is rarely about willpower. It’s limited access to discretionary time, which is often the foundation for building habits. Especially if your movement of choice is something that requires a court time, driving commute, partner or pool.
Come Up with Accessible Exercise
You may adore your hot yoga, pickleball, or hike, but again, unless you can easily do those things when your preferred time gets bumped by a sick child, client project, or parent in need, it’s hard to recover without a plan B.
You don’t have to schedule something elaborate or invest in fancy equipment to feel relief. If you haven’t set a routine yet, start by adding a walk, run, or stretch break, into your day. Even if that’s for only 10 – 15 minutes, it’s better than none and gives you space to build from.
If you’re already committed to frequent exercise, great. Add another 15 – 20 minutes or incorporate something new. For example, after years of running every morning, I added an afternoon walk most days to boost late day energy. More recently, I added strength training 3 days a week and continue to increase the amount of weight and range of muscles I train. I want to keep finding new ways to manage stress.
Stress Management is Key
The good news? Everything movement related also helps relieve stress. You can, however take other types of stress relieving mini breaks throughout your day too. For example, practice being mindful and present within your normal activities and surroundings.
You can also journal, take a few deep breaths, follow a formal breath work routine, visualize something calming, or repeat a soothing statement or mantra. After the kids are asleep, you can just sit quietly and pause all activity for a 5-minute mental palate cleanser.
Improve and Deepen Sleep
Sufficient sleep is the hardest one for me personally and statistically speaking, for a lot of us. About one third of adults suffer from periodic sleep challenges, whether they’re parenting or not. Women are more likely to have sleep troubles for several reasons. Monthly cycles can disrupt sleep as can menopause, pregnancy, postpartum, and parenting. Find a healthcare practitioner to help you diagnose why you’re not sleeping well.
Incorporate rest, and a wind down routine, as recommended by Dr. Shelby Harris, Author, Licensed Psychologist and Behavioral Sleep Doctor. “…If you have family demands at night, like taking care of kids and getting dinner on the table, it’s hard to find that luxurious hour to wind down everyone talks about. But you have to dim your brain in order to go to sleep at night.” You can also bring in foods with sleep-friendly nutritional profiles. Sue-Ellen Anderson-Haynes, Diabetes and Women’s Health Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, said, “…There are nutrients and foods that help to calm and relax the nervous system. Like foods that are high in vitamin C. Oranges, kiwi, sweet peppers and broccoli are really helpful. The acerola “cherry” is another one that I always look to for my patients.”
Nutrition to Get Strong from the Inside
Food is a powerful source of fuel, healing, immunity, stress reduction, and energy. Although food is my favorite hobby and I’ve written a lot about how to reduce your time planning and making family meals you don’t have to love cooking to add more nutrition into your days. There are so many good prepared, or semi-prepared options, that work with limited time and you can style your own system to ease lunch or dinner.
But if it’s not feasible for you to cook or assemble meals that support overall health, consult with an expert. Start with your doctor who can help you determine if you are getting sufficient nutrients. If not, whether you would benefit from nutritional supplements or other interventions. Then consider shifting how meals happen to your partner, if you have one or build in other healthy-ish options, whether that’s simple meals you make plus some delivery here and there.
Boost Your Healthy Adult Relationship Time
Bring time with friends back into your life! There are so many ways to make space for a phone call, conversation, shared errand, outing or video chat with your besties and beloved peeps. If your kids are in the playdate, performance or sports years, their friends likely have cool moms you’d enjoy getting to know too.
If you are partnered, then that’s a whole other relationship to nurture in different ways. If time alone doesn’t feel realistic this season, then consider adding a ‘in-home date night’ to your routine after the kids are asleep. As my hubby and I started during the pandemic by watching movies together Saturday nights. Marriage and romantic partnerships aren’t easy to maintain, especially after kids. Friction and frustration can develop over time, and if there’s distance over household operations then revisit who does what. If you need support consider couples therapy or a coach focused on relationship health.
Fun, Learning and Interests Help Too
Learn to adjust, when needed. For example, you might be dreaming of a cooking class in Thailand and if so, keep planning for it. But if that opportunity feels like a ‘bucket list’ item based on cost, distance and complexity, it might be years away. Consider finding a great Thai cook with a YouTube tutorial or a cookbook with great Thai recipes, or a local culinary school with a class you can drop into. You can even gather friends with similar interests to come to your kitchen, put the kids in front of the craft table and learn to cook something new together. These options are all interim options, and don’t diminish your dream of learning to cook Thai food.
Make things that you’re interested in trying less complicated to enjoy and easier to take advantage of now. If you’d like help with the tracking, we have a great tool you can use that takes less than 1 minute per week or per day, your choice.
Ready to start living with more enjoyment, whether you’re on vacation or not? Great, you deserve every moment of it.
Here’s a Quick Recap on Creating a Daily Reset
- Identify a form of self-care you’d like to increase. Feel free to start with the top of the Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs categories. Such as sleep, movement, stress management, healthy adult relationships, learning, fun, nutrition, and movement.
- Plan to fit more of your preferred activity into your daily life. Adjust how your calendar rules work to make the space for it. As I’ve shared in the past, ideally when you have energetic space. Which I define as having the time required, sufficient mental and physical energy for what you’ve chosen and ideally, child and/or eldercare coverage.
Breaks are good for you and your clarity. Having something in your daily life that refreshes and restores you is worth the effort to plan and protect the time. When you reset daily, there’s less pressure on needing that time off, whenever you take it, to be ‘perfect’ in every way.
——-
📚 Buy the new book, Repair with Self-Care: Your Guide to the Mom’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Enjoy the gift of more time for wellbeing and growth. Plus delightful self-care packages for Moms, delivered to your door.
Ready to put yourself back onto your to-do list? Take a TimeCheck.
Shared your story yet? Take our quick survey to change how workplaces support parents.
Employers, become Allies@Work
