If you are a mom with anxiety, your life can feel like a neverending walk through a minefield. Everywhere you look, danger seems to lurk.
You should seek professional treatment if your condition interferes with your ability to perform your daily tasks. However, you can also transform your tension levels into a superpower. Here’s how moms with anxiety can flourish and tips for doing so.
1. Master Your To-Do List
Even though you stay on the go from the time you wake up until you tumble into bed, you ensure everything gets completed. If you sometimes feel a bit frantic, it’s understandable — but you can harness the power of your anxiety to get your daily schedule and household running like a well-oiled machine.
One way to get organized is to create a chore chart that hangs on your refrigerator, allowing family members to cross off various tasks as they complete them. You might even set everyone’s device up with an organizational app that will help the entire clan remember soccer matches and missing grocery items.
You also understand that an uncertain future causes the worst of your fears. As such, you take measures to protect the ones you love by providing the coverage they need. You sleep better at night knowing that your loved ones will have the resources they need if you are no longer around to care for them.
2. Emphasize With a Struggling Colleague
If you have anxiety, you understand the struggle. Therefore, when someone else experiences severe distress, you recognize the signs and try to help. This empathy can accelerate your career.
Employers consistently rank empathy as one of the leading soft skills they prefer new hires to demonstrate. It helps you to read people and situations and respond appropriately. For example, someone who scores high in this personality trait may do well in customer service positions because they can relate to difficult clientele, letting them vent while remaining respectful.
However, management sometimes fails to understand how dealing with these scenarios, day in, day out, can affect you mentally, even physically. You do, though — and you’ll be there with words of support when you see your colleague get off a difficult call. Your empathy will draw others to you, which often speaks well for you when it’s time for promotions.
3. Soothe a Panicky Child
You can flourish as an anxious mom when it comes to soothing your child. You might be so gifted at it that other parents in your playgroup ask to borrow some of your magic.
For example, you understand that a lot of bad behavior stems from fear. Instead of telling your little one to “suck it up” before scary events like the first day of school, you help them prepare. You go for a test run — maybe three — introduce them to their teacher and put their minds at ease.
You also recognize that children sometimes act out when they need to process overwhelming emotions that they didn’t feel safe expressing at the time. You teach them positive coping skills, such as taking physical exercise and practicing deep breathing and pausing before responding when they feel upset.
4. Manage Challenging Scenarios
As a mom with anxiety, you might feel like you live most of your life in a fearful state. However, if you train yourself to differentiate between worry and genuine alarm, you can potentially save a life.
According to personal safety expert Gavin de Becker, worry is a choice — it is a fear that we manufacture. Genuine causes for alarm grab your attention and compel you to act if you aren’t distracted by artificial boogeymen.
However, part of your cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) as a mom with anxiety teaches you to reframe worries, casting them in a more realistic light. For example, is it honestly true that one missed zero on a budget report will lead to job loss and homelessness? Probably not.
When you aren’t distracted by artificial worry that every adult could be a potential child predator, your “spidey senses” pay more careful attention to cues about those few bad apples you shouldn’t trust. Your mindfulness lets you eliminate those folks you need not concern yourself with so that you can hone in on genuine threats to your family’s safety.
5. Discover Healthy Outlets
As a mom with anxiety, you must develop healthy ways to cope with your disorder. These practices often result in improved physical and mental health overall.
For example, one of the best ways to release nervous tension is through physical exercise. Working out also tones your heart muscle, helping it work more efficiently and lowering your pulse and blood pressure. Heart disease remains the number one killer of both men and women — getting your daily activity decreases your risk.
Taking time for yourself is also essential to relieve stress and anxiety. You can use this time to do something relaxing like going to the beach. Do something for yourself like getting nice clothes, buying cute swimwear from an inclusive brand like Swimspot, or learning how to surf. Taking time off is a necessary step to cope when you feel overwhelmed.
Therapy also teaches you other mechanisms for easing anxiety, such as talking with a trusted friend or engaging in a hobby. You can pass these techniques on to your children to help them manage their emotions. Helping your kids develop emotional regulation is one way to improve their chances of overall success in life.
Moms With Anxiety, Flourish With These 5 Tips
The world can seem like a frightening place if you are a mom with anxiety. However, by using the five tips above, you can harness your condition and transform it into a superpower.