The physical demands of moms can be so intense. It starts with being pregnant, carrying a baby for 9 months, gaining weight, then giving birth and taking care of the child. In a busy stay-at-home mom world, it’s crucial to prioritize taking care of your body. Learn about significance of physical self-care, the benefits it offers, and examples you can incorporate into your daily routine.
What Is a Physical Self-Care?
It is the most basic and important form of self-care that you can practice. Your body is a valuable asset, so taking care of your body is a very important process. Make choices that promote health and vitality. The expression “a sound mind in a sound body” may be old-fashioned, but it’s a core principle of physical self-care. You need to take care of your body if you want it to run efficiently.
Benefits of Physical Self-Care
- It reduces stress
- It boosts your immune system’s functioning
- It increases your energy level
- It helps you relax
- It lowers the chances of getting any pain in your body
The Importance of Physical Self-Care
Often you don’t pay attention to the state of your body when doing everyday tasks and the list of physical demands for Stay-at-home Moms goes on and on.
- Breastfeeding/ Bottle-feeding
- Rocking baby to sleep
- Lifting baby from the crib, bathtub, floor
- Putting the child in a high chair, car seat, or stroller
- Carrying baby on your hip
- Household chores
And when kids get older you have to actively play with them and chase them around. Sometimes you sitting or lying in an awkward position and it’s very stressful for your body. Physical self-care is crucial, as it improves not just physical health but also has a profound impact on mental and emotional well-being.
Physical Self-Care Examples
1. Practice Body Awareness
Often, we are so busy, we forget about our physicality. To help us build and maintain groundedness, we need to be present within ourselves. One great way to do this is a body scan. Being able to recognize when your body is tired from lack of sleep or tired due to muscular pain is very important.
2. Remember About Proper Posture and Ergonomics
Constant repetition of tasks, often in awkward postures, can quickly lead to painful conditions, most commonly affecting the hands, neck, and back. It can be difficult to do every step and movement perfectly. But Just be aware of your posture and the way you do things. Gradually introduce a proper movement habit into your daily routine.
3. Exercise
Physical activity is a great way to boost your mood and energy levels. You don’t need to go to the gym. It’s enough to do home workout, yoga or walking routine.
4. Eat Well-Balanced Diet and Stay Hydrated
Eating healthy and drinking water are two basic pillars of good health and overall well-being. When you have a healthy diet and drink water instead of juice or soda you increase chances of your body to function properly.
5. Take Your Supplements and Vitamins
Before you purchase a supplement, consult your doctor and do the necessary blood work to make sure you need additional vitamins. They should not be a replacement for a balanced diet.
6. Do Annual Checkups
It’s always better, easier, and cheaper to prevent illness than trying to cure it. So if you want to have best chance of a long, healthy life start adding regular check-ups to your busy schedule.
7. Address any Health Problems
And make sure you do it as soon as you spot symptoms. Don’t let your busy schedule get in the way and go visit your physician.
8. Get Enough Sleep
In our busy lives it’s not easy to do and sometimes even feels impossible. But the importance of getting enough sleep cannot be overemphasized, as it is intrinsically linked to our physical and mental health, So make sure you’re getting sufficient rest.
9. Try Acupuncture
It involves the insertion of very thin needles through your skin at strategic points on your body. It’s an effective, safe, and natural practice to improve your overall wellness and manage a wide array of conditions. it can also improve your sleep, mood, and energy level.
10. Give Reflexology a Try
It is defined as a calm and soothing massage of the pressure points of the feet, hands, and ears that are connected through the nervous system to corresponding parts of the body.
11. Master Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) Technique
It aims to reverse body states from anxiety, stress, and fear back to more neutral, relaxed states. The technique is a two-step process. It involves learning to relieve the tension in specific muscle groups by first tensing and then relaxing each muscle group.
12. Make an Appointment for Acupressure
Acupressure consists of pressing the acupuncture points in an attempt to help the free flow of energy in the channel(s). Acupressure is similar to acupuncture, but the person uses their fingers instead of needles to work the point. During a treatment, you will experience a slight pain when the proper acupuncture point is pressed.
13. Schedule a Massage
The purpose of massage therapy is to target the source of the body’s pain by eliminating tense muscles, increasing flexibility, and providing relaxation to the affected muscles as well as the body as a whole.
14. Start Physical Therapy
If you are experiencing pelvic floor dysfunction, or want to speed up muscular strengthening after childbirth, postpartum physical therapy can be a way to go. After the postpartum period if you experiencing any kind of body pain that lasts too long, talk to your provider and ask for a referral to see a physical therapist who will create a unique, customized treatment plan just for you.
15. Visit a Pain Management Doctor
If you have a pre-existing condition and your pain is getting worse. If you have severe or chronic pain and it’s not improving with other treatments. Consider going to see a pain management doctor as a last resort.
Takeaway
For a mother, it is effortless to put forth her child’s needs over her own. However, neglecting your physical health will have dire consequences. So give those physical self-care examples a try and don’t forget “a sound mind in a sound body”.
