Whether you decided to spend a nice day with your family or you just “took a
day off” – I hope that all Moms out there had a wonderful Mother’s Day. I think
that we all take (or have taken) our Mom’s for granted. They do so much for us
and our families – maintenance, kid scheduling, meal prepping, school
arranging, activity enabling, anything lost finding, pet caring and just plain
all around constant nagging, err… reminding, and sometimes that job gets a bit
overwhelming.
Dr. Nadine Kaslow, professor of psychiatry at Emory University
and chief psychologist for the Grady Health System, has an explanation for why
that might be. "As more and more women are in the workplace and are
working full time, and then they often come home and work full time, so they
often have two full-time jobs. I think as the pace of life has gotten even
faster with even more and more demands, children having more activities, cell
phones, text messaging, e-mailing. The demands have gotten greater."
And those greater demands aren't going anywhere. So what's a mom who's at
her wits end to do?
Well, experts such as Kaslow advise us to do something many mothers might
find difficult: We need to make ourselves a bigger priority.
Yikes! Another thing to do!
But this task just might have some real benefits.
"There are a number of reasons it's good for a woman to take care of
herself," Kaslow explained. "First of all it's really hard to take
care of other people if you are not taking care of yourself. If you think about
a car metaphor, if there's not enough fuel in the car, the car won't go,"
she said. "A second reason is when people aren't taking care of
themselves, they tend to get resentful of the other people they are taking care
of in their lives, so they may become short or irritable with them. A third
reason is that life is more meaningful and gratifying if we take care of
ourselves; we tend not to feel depressed," she added. "We feel less
anxious, and moms who are not depressed and less anxious are more able to be
effective mothers."
And who doesn't want to be a more effective mother?
But how do you know if you aren't getting enough self-renewal time?
Kaslow has some advice: "I would say if you say to yourself, 'Gosh I
wish I had time to read a book; I never get to exercise; I don't get any time
with my partner; I never see my friends,' and you find yourself spending time
just thinking about what you wish you were doing -- that would be a warning
sign to me."
"Certainly if you start to feel like you are a little depressed and a
little anxious because there is not much that is fun in your life, not much
that gives you pleasure, that would be another warning."
And don't get suckered into believing the only way to really get in time for
yourself is by spending a day at the spa or going on some major
credit-crunching shopping spree.
Experts in these matters say that when it comes to getting the most out of
your time, it's the little things that count. "Take a bath or read a book.
Make a list or think through what is really valuable to you," Kaslow
suggests. "Make sure these are things you will enjoy that are within your
budget," she said, so that you're not stressing out even more about the
money you're spending.
Because there really is nothing to be done about money stress... Everybody's got that.
Jason
