Welcome back to The Motherhood Dilemma! In this episode, your co-hosted team, Catie and Andrea, dive into Anxiety during motherhood. Through personal stories and professional expertise, Perinatal Mental Health specialist Catie Whiting defines and explains “Mom-xiety”. This insight provides listeners with information to understand anxiety, how it uniquely affects mothers, how it manifests in their lives, and ways they can conquer it. So join your hosts, Catie and Andrea, as they provide a fresh perspective and tools to identify and "lean in" to Mom-xiety.
Tools to overcoming "Mom-xiety":
Rational vs IrrationalThis tool should be done every day over at least 1-2 weeks. As you go through your day, write down the “fears” or “anxieties” that pop into your head and cause you distress. At the end of the day, take a look at what thoughts you have written down. Are they rational... or irrational? Meaning: Are you worried about a tornado coming when you see a dark cloud (irrational), versus, there’s a tornado warning on the radio (rational). Once you rate rational versus irrational, you will see that many of the anxious thoughts that pop into your head are irrational. This activity allows your brain to see that it holds multiple anxious thoughts that are just taking up space, and do not provide any safety for you.
Put it in a BoxThis tool is one of Catie's favorites and is great for worries (that you have no control over) that seem to take up space in your brain. The idea is to "write it down". When you take a pen and paper and write down the thoughts, it pulls them from the emotional side of the brain to the logical side, allowing for a calmer discharge. In other words: Place the worry on a sheet of paper, fold it up, and put it in the box (or throw it in the trash). This allows your brain to see that you are aware of the worry, you accept the worry, but you have no room to hold it and you’re placing it in the box on the shelf.
MovementThis last tool is talked about constantly. “Go exercise and you’ll feel better“, “go for a run and you’ll feel better“. The idea is you must allow your body to have some kind of physical discharge to release anxious manifestations. This can be jumping on the bed for five minutes, running around the house yelling, punching a pillow, etc... The idea is not to do a full workout, although that is welcome. The idea is to discharge physical tension through the body, showing your brain that you have multiple ways for it to feel better.
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