Top tips for mums: Building your personal resilience
Mums and Babies in Mind, a Maternal Mental Health Alliance project, share their top tips.
Talk about your feelings
Talking about your feelings can help you stay in good mental health and deal with times when you feel troubled.
It’s part of taking charge of your wellbeing and doing what you can to stay healthy.
Talking can be a way to cope with a problem you’ve been carrying around in your head for a while.
Just being listened to can help you feel supported and less alone. It can also help to normalise mental illness, tackle stigma and enable other mothers to speak out.
Check out these links to local peer support groups or national helplines here.
Exercise
Regular exercise can boost your self-esteem and can help you concentrate, sleep, and look and feel better.
Exercise keeps the brain and your other vital organs healthy, and is also a significant benefit towards improving your mental health.
Eat well
Your brain needs a mix of nutrients in order to stay healthy and function well, just like the other organs in your body.
A diet that’s good for your physical health is also good for your mental health.
Keep in touch
There’s nothing better than catching up with someone face to face, but that’s not always possible.
You can also give them a call, drop them a note, or chat to them online instead.
Keep the lines of communication open: it’s good for you!
Ask for help
None of us are superhuman. We all sometimes get tired or overwhelmed by how we feel or when things don’t go to plan.
If things are getting too much for you and you feel you can’t cope, ask for help.
Your family or friends may be able to offer practical help or a listening ear.
Local services are there to help you: talk to your midwife or Health Visitor, they’re experienced at helping expectant mums with all sorts of worries, mental health included.
Take a break
A change of scene or a change of pace is good for your mental health.
It could be a five-minute pause from cleaning your kitchen, a half-hour lunch break at work, or a weekend exploring somewhere new.
A few minutes can be enough to de-stress you. Give yourself some ‘me time’.
Do something you’re good at
Sometimes it can feel strange not being at work; focus on doing an activity you enjoy when the baby isn’t demanding your attention.
What do you love doing? What activities can you lose yourself in? What did you love doing in the past?
Enjoying yourself can help beat stress.
Doing an activity you enjoy probably means you’re good at it, and achieving something boosts your self-esteem.
Accept who you are
We’re all different. It’s much healthier to accept that you’re unique than to wish you were more like someone else.
Feeling good about yourself boosts your confidence to learn new skills, visit new places and make new friends.
Good self-esteem helps you cope when life takes a difficult turn.
While you are pregnant, you can plan how you can look after your emotional wellbeing when baby arrives, and what you might do if you’re struggling.
Tools like the Emotional Wellbeing plan can help with this.
This article was written by Mums and Babies in Mind, a Maternal Mental Health Alliance project.
