If you’re a homeschool mama that is stressed, overwhelmed, overburdened, or touched out, you may think that I’m writing this blog post for you. And by all means, I really hope that it helps you out! But, if I’m really being completely honest with you, “self care for homeschool mamas” is a topic that I need right now, and, instead of doing the research and keeping it to myself, I decided to share it!
What is Self Care Anyway?
According to the National Institute of Mental Health,
Self-care means taking the time to do things that help you live well and improve both your physical health and mental health. This can help you manage stress, lower your risk of illness, and increase your energy. Even small acts of self-care in your daily life can have a big impact.
Basically, anything that we do in order to improve our wellbeing can be considered an act of self care. Although this definition only refers to physical health and mental health, I’ve more often seen the idea of wellbeing broken down into four areas – mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual. But despite these being four broad areas, it is easy to find even many more aspects of wellbeing that can be improved with self care depending on where you look or who you ask (such as social and financial).
Why is Self Care so Important?
I know I mentioned other kinds of wellbeing, but let’s just focus on the top four. Based on my experience, if any of these four areas are lacking, it tends to bring down (most of) the others right along with it. Here are several examples:
- When I’m physically sick, oftentimes my ability to think is slowed, and I become extra emotional.
- When my brain feels foggy or slow from overwork or overstimulation, I’ll often start to feel worse physically as well as notice that my patience is wearing thin and I’m closer to tears.
- If someone’s been hurt emotionally, it often manifests physically (crying, sleeping, and lack of appetite in the more severe cases) and mentally (slowed thinking, negative thoughts, over-focusing on the situation).
- I think the spiritual aspect is the only one that might not show as many signs of suffering along with the others, but when you suffer spiritually, everything else usually suffers too.
Extrapolating from the NIH definition, a lack of self care appears to correlate with higher stress, a higher risk of illness, and lower energy levels. As busy moms, and as busy homeschool moms, these things are detrimental! Stress is inevitable, but higher stress adds extra pressure to our “jobs” of being moms and teachers (and janitors, cooks, principals, etc) to our children. Energy is crucial to being present with our children day in and day out. And let’s definitely not bring any extra sickness into our homes, thank you very much!
What are the Benefits of Self Care?
The NIH said self care can “help you manage stress, lower your risk of illness, and increase your energy.” If those were the only benefits, self care would already be worthwhile, but there are a ton of other benefits.
Self care improves your physical health! Whether exercising, eating good foods, or doing other things that calm you and lower your blood pressure, your physical health will improve.
Self care improves your mood! Taking the time to focus on your needs and wants creates a more positive atmosphere which will improve your mood. As an added bonus, focusing on yourself reminds you that you’re worth it, creating a greater sense of self worth.
Self care reduces feelings of burnout and can help prevent them! If you manage to perform self care before you get to the point of burnout (note to self: perform self care sooner!), it’ll move you farther away from those feelings and prevent them. But if you’re already there (cough cough), it’ll help you recover from burnout, reducing the feelings, and bringing you back to your regularly scheduled, non-burnt out life.
Self care improves your relationships! When you’ve taken the time to #treatyoself well, you have the energy and capacity to treat others better too. Plus you’ll have more patience for the little people in your life when you’re not running on fumes or circling near burnout.
What are some Ideas of Self Care for Homeschool Mamas?
Physical self care includes healthy eating and exercise, along with having your regular doctor and dentist appointments. It can also include taking a bath with epsom salts, getting a massage, or going for regular mani/pedis. Often we buy clothes for our kids but still wear the same pre-pregnancy clothes that no longer fit or no longer feel comfortable. Buying ourselves clothes for our current size and stage of life is a form of physical self care. If you have any physical ailments, getting them treated will not only help you physically, it will help you mentally as well!
Mental self care includes doing things specifically for your own benefit, such as reading, listening to music or an audiobook, or even meditating. For homeschool moms, creating a separation between homeschool and home, similar to creating a separation between work and home, is an example of mental self care. It’s ok to always be learning, but think about it like a job (teacher, janitor, principal). When you bring the job home and you’re always thinking about it, you’ll notice when it overwhelms your home life. You’ll notice when you’re allowing that to color your interactions with your family. But sometimes we do the same thing with homeschooling. We bring the “shoulds” with us. (We should finish that lesson or curriculum, we should do more of XYZ, my kid should be better a _blank_.) That mental load isn’t healthy for us and it isn’t healthy for our families.
Creating a separate homeschool space and leaving the work there can help, or making the deduction that school is during a specific time frame, or not during a specific time frame, will allow you to release the burden. It’s also important to remind yourself that you don’t have to finish a curriculum, that your homeschool is personal to your family, and that your kid is an individual who learns at his or her own pace. There are no “shoulds” involved!
More Ideas of Self Care for Homeschool Mamas
Emotional self care will often include pieces of each of the other types of self care. Buying clothes that fit means that you won”t need to search through clothes that are uncomfortable or the wrong size each day. This will immediately change your mood from disappointment, sadness, and frustration, to one of contentment, and potentially happiness and satisfaction. Releasing the mental “shoulds” and creating a separation between homeschool and home can help you move away from feelings of anxiety, resentment, stress, and guilt. Instead you’ll move towards feeling more calm, content, relaxed, and accepting. Remember, you are enough!
More emotional self care ideas include journaling, taking a walk, or watching a tv show or movie that makes you feel good (or maybe makes you cry and release some of your heavy emotional burden!). Listening to music, phoning a friend, or spending time with other adults going through similar life situations will help. Prayer is also a large part of emotional self care for many homeschool mamas.
Spiritual self care includes attending church, prayer, Bible study, and meditation. It can also include focusing on acts of kindness and trying to follow Jesus’ example of peace and goodwill. Journaling and tracking three things you’re grateful for daily will help create a habit of spiritual self care.
Getting Started with Self Care for Homeschool Mamas
I know I shared a lot of ideas here, but I hope that at least a handful of them resonated with you. If you’re like me, you’re basically with your kids 24/7. When my cup is half full, and, even worse, when there are only drops left in it, I can’t really function as my best self. This is why self care for homeschool mamas is so important. By taking care of our needs, we can better take care of our children and their needs.
How are you going to show yourself self care today? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
Thank you for joining us In Our Homeschool.
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