Deep or conscious breathing – Breathing is a mum’s best friend when it comes to accessing a place of instant calm and not biting the head off your child or partner. We carry our lungs everywhere and our breath is one of our greatest but most underused tools when it comes to relaxation. I think as Mothers, we spend way to much time holding our breath!
Breathing exercises can also increase vagal tone and improve digestive motility (often what goes out of whack in IBS – constipation and diarrhoea). Check out my favourite breathing techniques to get started: https://chriskresser.com/my-top-5-breathing-exercises-for-stress-relief/

Movement & Yoga – Yoga increases vagal activity and induces ‘stress off’ by combining aspects of exercise, meditation, and deep breathing. I understand doing yoga with your kids may not be quite the same experience but luckily fun, laughter and playfulness work on our pause button as well. We just need to approach it with a different mindset and different expectations than we would our Thursday night date with Yoga with Adriene! Love her!

Raise your vibe – this is anything that fills your heart up and sets your soul on fire! Research indicates that music can reduce pain and anxiety, reduce cortisol, and increase levels of oxytocin (connection hormone). This is your green light to bring out your Now 27 album, and get your 90’s groove on. Have a home disco, play games, be silly, let loose and remember, the more you embarrass your kids, the better!

Tea Break – we all need a tea break but a little hack here is to be mindful of your beverage. If you feel stressed or burnt out or feel like your ‘mother-load’ is too heavy and overwhelming, then you don’t want to be adding caffeine to the fire. By all means, have your morning or lunchtime coffee (I am all bout the coffee) but, think drinks that support ‘stress off’ – herbal teas are fab. I’m a big camomile fan or decaf green tea, or turmeric or ginger tea. Mint tea can be super calming on our digestive system too!

Creativity – Kids love to draw, paint, stick, make, paste, glue, assemble etc. etc. so jump on that arty wagon! I drew the whole inflammatory cascade one morning while Bonnie was painting her hands black! You don’t have to be an artist to immerse yourself into something creative. Find something you enjoy, adult colouring book, making jewellery, painting, beads, cutting etc. When we’re creating we are fully immersed! Our whole self – mind, body, heart and spirit. There is no room for the mental chatter or our mind to rule the show, it’s too busy focusing on putting a tiny bead on a tiny string (me this morning). We are colourful and present. The perfect pause!

Pressing the pause button isn’t always easy, we forget and get wrapped up in the ‘need to-dos’! For me, it’s something I will always be consciously working on and accept I won’t always get it right. To help me, I like to remind myself of the aspects of my health that are currently important to me – energy, weight loss, balance and emotional regulation and then ask myself regularly, ‘What do I need right now?’

When we give ourselves what we need, we achieve and succeed!  Cheesy but true!

Be kind, patient and compassionate towards yourself, and do your best to create space and opportunity within the beautiful, messy magic that is motherhood. Not only are we doing it for ourselves, but we are also teaching our little ones how to push their pause button. I think that is one of our greatest life skills right now.