3 years as a mother who also happens to be working at an office apart from home and it has made me exhausted. My shoulders are almost always slumped and I seem to wait for days when I don’t have to do anything at all. Those days, I must tell you, are few and far in between. However, after shifting M to a daycare closer to home, things have eased down a bit. I’m still on the run from the early hours on weekdays but the strain is slightly less. Of course, once she starts school, I don’t know how I’m going to manage. But that’s a problem for another day. Today, I want to talk about moms, about women who wear so many hats and often forget that they need to care for themselves as well.

Now I know there is no end to these packed days, not in the near future at least. In any case, that’s also how it is supposed to be because there’s just one life to live and so many things to do. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do little things to ease the tension that always manifests on to our shoulders.

I was reminded of this, even more, when a few days ago Glenn Close said something in her acceptance speech after winning a Golden Globe. Sharing the experience of her mother, who had taken a backseat to her husband’s career and therefore felt very disappointed that she had not done anything worthwhile in life, Close said ‘I feel what I’ve learned through this whole experience is that women, we’re nurturers. That’s what’s expected of us. We have our children, we have our husbands, if we’re lucky enough, and our partners, whoever. But we have to find personal fulfilment.’ Personal Fulfilment. It makes sense, doesn’t it?

For some reason, we women seem all too eager to sacrifice our dreams for others, even when not asked to do so. I think we can be nurturers while also giving a chance to the voice in our hearts and minds that’s just for us. I don’t want to look back at my life and feel like I haven’t tried to do what I wanted to do. And that’s why a lot of women now, myself included, are trying very hard to hold on to our dreams while also doing what is expected of us as wives and mothers. If you didn’t know, there are no either-or for women, we have to do it all anyway. Well, at least, try to. Hence, in doing so, we often stretch ourselves so much that it affects our body and mind. And that’s where self-care becomes so important.

Often when I talk about self-care, people think of big steps or gestures but it really isn’t so. There are simple things which we can do as busy women, as busy moms to make sure we don’t flip out on our worst days. There are things we can do to make sure that we find blocks of time, however short, in our packed days to relax in any way we want to.

I think women can be nurturers while also giving a chance to the voice in our hearts and minds that’s just for us.

I have been trying that ever since M was born and I intend to keep doing so as long as I can. It’s a promise I made to myself when I was pregnant and the control freak in me hasn’t allowed me to let go of that promise yet. I see a lot of moms like me who think it’s a crime or even selfish to take time out for oneself. Let me tell you, it’s not so. You deserve the free time even if it’s in blocks of 5 minutes.  So, here are the things which you can do to take care of yourself because I too do some of these to keep myself sane. Here are some easy self-care ideas for busy moms like me.

Self Care Ideas for Busy Moms

Listen to music.

 

Read a book.

 

Take a walk in the park.

 

Sit in the balcony with a cup of tea and do nothing.

 

Shop something for yourself.

 

Play some music and dance.

 

Cook something that you love or order in.

 

Apply nail polish.

 

Visit the neighbourhood spa.

 

Watch a movie on Netflix.

 

Sketch something in your diary.

 

Do some gardening if you have a green thumb or even if you don’t.

 

Paint something.

 

Have a glass of wine while staring into nothing.

 

Take a nap.

 

Don’t follow the routine one day.

 

Go for swimming.

 

Play a sport.

 

Work from home one day and be in your pyjamas the whole time.

 

Plan a solo getaway, if you can be a little more adventurous.