Some quick tips for maintaining self-care while juggling work-life and parent-life!

If you're like me, you're constantly trying to find more time in the day to make the most out of this wonderful life. Here are some quick tips and a few friendly reminders that YOU are amazing and deserve to treat yourself with love and care that you deserve, while still finding time in the day to make sure your kid's life is as amazing as you envision it.

Give yourself an hour to start the day

Go to bed shortly after your kiddo heads to bed and wake up and hour before you are needing to help them get ready for school! We have all been in situations where it doesn’t feel like you had any time for yourself on a work/school day. You can remedy some of this by getting a faster start to the day. Sometimes, getting up, making a cup of coffee, doing some light yoga or reading a book for a few minutes is exactly what you need to jump start your day and your brain!

Read!

Speaking of reading, there are always small blocks of time throughout your busy day to find time to read or listen to an audio-book. Waiting for gymnastics or dance to get over? Pop in your earbuds or grab the used book you bought from your local bookstore.

Current recommendations: Blue Zones by Dan Buettner and You are a Badass series by Jen Sincero! Both are inspiring, insightful, and could be just the jump start you need to make that big change in your life you’ve been looking to make!

Self-Care Apps!

Self-care apps are one of the newer tools that we have in our parental toolbox, and they seem to be getting better with each new release and update. Self-care apps can range anywhere from diet apps, budget apps, and my current personal favorite: Meditation/Mental Wellness apps. It’s sometimes a delight to be able to turn on one of these meditation exercises while I'm waiting to pick-up a child, or as I’m sipping my morning coffee.

Current recommendation: Calm App

Work on Mind/Body Wellness

Staying on the self-care trend, there are many other ways to find short snippets of time to proactively work on yourself – your mind and body wellness.

Find a gym or hot yoga facility that has in house childcare. There are many places like this popping up in larger metro areas all the way down to smaller mom and pop shops. If you can, find a place your kiddo enjoys playing, and give yourself 45 minutes to an hour a few times a week to decompress with some exercise!

Instead of thinking about doing a massage “when you have time”, make yourself schedule one once per month. Budget the time and money, make sure your husband or wife knows well in advance, and just do it! It’s amazing what we can get done if we schedule it well out in advance.

Massages not your thing? Try acupuncture. Acupuncture has been shown to be a great habit to get into for your physical as well as mental wellness – in as little as one 30-minute session per month! Most acupuncture facilities allow for drop-ins – so if you find yourself with 30 minutes, give acupuncture a try. It just might be your new secret to keeping happy and healthy!

Get Creative with Exercise!

We all know that once we have kids, certain activities that we had time for just are not do-able anymore. It’s all about making sure that we are still on the look-out for opportunities to take advantage of the situation at hand. Going to the park?

Dress in attire that allows you to run around, play some tag, or maybe even use the park for a short workout!

Find a workout plan online that you can do while at the park. Bring a yoga mat and get some push-ups and sit-ups in while they play!

Maybe plan the adventure to the park so that both you and your kid can get some exercise in. Making a “game” out of walking briskly around the park (4 laps and we save the princess!) is always a fun and easy opportunity.

Try Blocking out your Day

Thinking about your day in blocks is something that we always are told to try to practice, but it’s something difficult to implement daily. We have so many things popping up all throughout the day that it’s very difficult to plan out exactly what will happen.

Plan out one or two things you want to accomplish throughout the day, and make sure that they are attainable. Many times, accomplishing that first thing provides you lots of momentum to knock out the next couple of tasks.

Plan for a specific time where you are going to address that problem, many times it’s great to use your morning reflection time to plan out these things.

Start small. Starting with smaller goals (15 minutes of stretching in the morning, for example) can turn into larger goals (those 15 minutes of stretching can turn into 45 minutes of yoga once you have set your specific time frames and made a habit out of doing it every morning!)

Journal

Lastly, start a journal if you haven’t already! We all experience these moments throughout our day that we wish we could bottle up and save for a later date. Having a journal that you come back to once a day, once a week, or even once a month is a habit to get into that you will treasure in your later years. Journals are perfect for reflection, a place to be able to vent, and a piece of history that you will enjoy even into your later years. “Remember when she put hand soap in the dishwasher and the kitchen filled up with bubbles!?” What a kid.

Remember, a little self-maintenance and self-love can go a long way!

Michelle
Monkeybar Buddies

This blog was written while enjoying: Alamos – Argentinian Malbec