As a mom, taking care of yourself can seem impossible when you have little ones. Especially as a new mom, all your focus goes to your baby, and me-time is nonexistent.
But taking care of yourself is essential and is more than taking a shower.
Although taking a shower is helpful to unwind and necessary for basic hygiene, several self-care ideas have been shared in pop culture that isn’t what you actually need. Pedicures, massages, and weekends away are great but aren’t going to help you long-term.
In this episode, I share some not-so-sexy self-care ideas to help you flourish and be your best self. If you are ready to find out what these six ideas are, check out the entire episode.
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Transcript of this Episode
Speaker A: As a mom, taking care of yourself can seem impossible when you have little ones, especially as a new mom, all of your focus goes to your baby and me. Time can seem nonexistent. But taking care of yourself is important, and more than just taking a shower. Although taking a shower is helpful and it’s really good for helping to unwind and necessary for basic hygiene, there’s more to it than just that. There are several self care ideas that have been shared in pop culture that are not what we actually need as moms. Pedicures massages, weekend getaways are great, but aren’t going to help you in the long term. And I want to share with you some not so sexy self care ideas that will help you flourish and be your best self. Hey there. I’m Tony, and I am the host of the Real Happy Mom podcast, the podcast for busy working moms who need help with time management, achieving their big goals without pulling their hair out. And I’m here to help you get to the point where you can see harmony in your work life and live out your biggest dreams. So in this episode today, I’m excited to share with you some not so flexible self care ideas, and this episode is going to help you on that journey towards that. So let’s go ahead and jump on in. So I wanted to share with you some not so sexy selfcare ideas to help you with making sure that you are taken care of, because one of the things that I always like to refer to is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. And if you’re not familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it’s pretty much a theory that a guy named Maslow created that talks about the five different tiers that we need as human beings in order to of survive and thrive. And at the very bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is physiological needs. These are things like air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing, and then also making sure that you’re reproducing and carrying out those genes to the next generation. So these basic physiological needs are the things that we need to really just survive. And a lot of times we forget about those basic things or we put it on the back burner. And one of those basic things that I want to go to first is drinking water. So did you know that dehydration is one of the most common causes of headaches? So getting enough water is going to help you with preventing those headaches and also help remove toxins and regulate your digestion. And if you’re wondering what are some of the signs that you need to drink some more water, just pay attention. Are you getting headaches? Do you notice you have dry mouth? Are your eyes dry? Is your skin dry? Is your urine super dark? These are all signs that you are dehydrated and need a little more water. And if you’re like me and you’re trying to get your weight in check. Drinking water can aid with weight loss and weight management. So make sure that you’re getting enough water each and every day. So I always say for me to make sure I’m getting enough is whenever I’m eating snacks. I always have my water next to me. So when I eat my snacks, I can drink water and then also eating fruit and vegetables that has water in it too as well. So getting your fruits and vegetables will help with your dehydration that you may be suffering with. So drinking water is first up for the notsoxy self care ideas. So next, I talked about eating vegetables. Vegetables are something that you have a diet rich in. Vegetables and fruits, you can actually start to lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke. Fruits and vegetables are one of those things that is hard to come by, like really good fresh ones because I feel like everything is so processed out there, at least here in the States. But getting in fruits and vegetables will help you with preventing cancer, lower risk of eye digestive problems, and also have a positive effect on your blood sugar which can help you keep your appetite in check. So make sure that you’re getting enough vegetables in so that you can make sure that you’re taking care of yourself. So next for those basic physiological needs is getting enough sleep. This is one thing I know sometimes it’s hard for us as moms, especially if you have little ones that are waking up throughout the night. But sleep is an essential function that allows our body and our mind to recharge. We have to get enough sleep so that we can feel refreshed and alert when we wake up. Healthy sleep is so important in keeping our body healthy and actually preventing diseases. And with enough sleep, your brain can’t even properly function. And I’m sure you’re pretty aware of that on those days that you’re sleep deprived from being up with either a sick child or itty bitty baby. But sleep is one of those things that we need for our physical and mental health. We need to have enough sleep so that we can make it through the long run and feel energetic and optimistic. It is super important, especially like I was talking about before, about keeping our weight or helping with weight loss. If you’re getting enough sleep, that is going to help with the weight management or weight loss. And one fun fact, did you know that while you’re sleeping, your body is actually healing and repairing itself? It’s learning and it’s actually preventing diseases. If that isn’t reason enough, definitely start trying to find ways that you can incorporate getting a few extra minutes of sleep so that you can be your best self. So, some tips on getting some better sleep because again, I get it. I know it’s hard when you have littles who are waking up in the middle of the night. But there are some things that we can do so that we can fall asleep a lot quicker and stay asleep or have better sleep. And some of those things are shutting off electronic devices at least 30 minutes before bedtime, taking a warm shower or bath that helps our body to relax and fall asleep quicker. Also reading a book and definitely turning the lights out at that time. But you do know yourself and you know what environment helps you to fall asleep easier. So definitely find ways to get even if it’s like ten minutes extra sleep so that you can get the sleep that you need to stay healthy and be your best self. So up next for not so sexy self care ideas is making doctors appointments. I am really big about making sure every year at the beginning of the year, I have my annual physical, my wellness exam with my OBGYN, my eye exam, and my dentist appointment. Yes, the dentist sees the dentist. Now, no matter what age or stage you are in your life, annual physical or wellness exam is essential to your health. So make sure that you’re making your appointment to see your primary care provider for preventative care so that you can make sure that you’re identifying and treating any health issues before they get worse. And the same goes with the dentist. You want to see the dentist regularly so that you can catch things before they turn into big expensive problems. Now, before you go in for these appointments, make sure you’re writing down any questions. Make sure you know what medications you are taking, make note of any allergies past surgeries. Also make sure you know when your last cycle was because you know they’re going to ask you that and then any other data that you’ve been tracking. For me, I’ve been using the app called Clue and that is where I track my cycle and other symptoms in there. And I did notice that I was having some really bad PMS or another time when I had really bad cramps. I brought that information to my doctor so that they could see where these things were happening in my cycle, so that we could tweak some things with vitamins and with exercise to make sure that I was feeling my best. So make sure you have all of that information with you and make those appointments for yourself. I know you’re doing it for your kids, but make sure you’re doing it for yourself. So remember your annual physical, your eye exam, your dentist appointment this year. Let’s get it done. So up next for not so sexy self care ideas is budgeting. Budgeting is one of those things. I will raise my hand and say I am not the greatest at, but it is so important for us to make sure that we are assigning our money to do certain things. And we know exactly where that money is going because there have been many times that I pull up my AMX account and I’m like, how did I spend all this money? Like, what happened here? And that is just for me, just swiping. So having a budget and sticking with it will definitely help with making you feel a lot more secure and feeling safe. And again, going back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, remember, the basic things that we need are those physiological needs. The next tier up is safety needs. These are things like personal security, employment, resources, health. These are all really important things that we need to have to really feel secure. And budgeting is one of the ways to help us feel secure. So budgeting is going to help you with keeping your eye on the prize, with reaching your goals, whatever those financial goals are, whether it’s buying a house, paying off debt, buying a new car, going and traveling more, whatever the case is, budgeting is going to help you with that. It’s also going to help you ensure that you’re not overspending or spending what you don’t have, lead you to a happier retirement because you don’t want to be a retirement age and not being able to enjoy those days. And then also, budgeting helps prepare for emergencies. And one crazy fact that I found was back in 2022, there was data from 2021 that showed that 68% of Americans could not cover a $400 emergency expense with cash or its equivalent. That was mind blowing to me, not even having $400 for an emergency expense. So make sure that you are taking some time going through budgeting so that you can have money for a rainy day and not be like the 68% of Americans that said they didn’t have the $400. Up next for the not so sexy self care ideas that we all need to do is checking our insurance. Yes, check your car insurance, check your homeowner’s insurance, check your life insurance. Having all of these things in place will give you that security. Again, going back to NASA’s Hierarchy of Needs, safety needs are one of those big ones. And insurance falls into those safety needs because it’s going to provide you that security. So check with your insurance, your car insurance, call them up and check the coverage. And if you have any questions, definitely talk to an agent. Talk about the limits, the deductibles, to make sure that you are getting the coverage you need within your budget, and definitely make sure that you’re looking into your homeowners and renters insurance. I know for me, I’ve been paying my homeowner’s insurance for so long, I didn’t even know where the information was. But I made sure that I went and located where the information was. God forbid anything happened to my house, I knew who to call so that we could get things fixed. And then the other thing too is with life insurance. I have seen a really bad situation where a person passed away and the beneficiary was not updated on their life insurance. And so that money went to their ex husband. And needless to say, it caused a lot of strife within the family and I don’t want that for you. So definitely make sure that you’re updating your beneficiaries on your life insurance, going in and checking your life insurance to see if you even assigned any beneficiaries because you don’t want to die and have your ex husband or your ex wife getting the money and you didn’t intend for them to get it. And if you have more insurance about health or life insurance, make sure you go and check out episode number 48 where I talked to someone all about that and got some really good information there. So those are my things that I wanted to share with you that, like I said, are the not so sexy healthcare ideas, but are definitely essential for us to live out our best lives and be our best selves. So if you’re thinking, okay, Tony, I got some more to add to that list, let me know. Go ahead and hit the link down in the description, and in there you will see a link to a free resource that will be sent directly to your email. And just go ahead and reply back to that email and let me know what other not so sexy self care ideas you’ve got. I hope you found that this episode was helpful. I hope that you will begin to look and see some of the ways that you can implement something not so sexy self care ideas and begin to live out your best life, be your best self. So that’s it for this week’s episode. Take care and with a lots of love.