Logan Voss
From growing feet and mystery pains to constantly learning more, it’s normal to get overwhelmed during pregnancy. Let’s discuss four strategies to get you through pregnancy stress so that you can enjoy these next few months and love the start of something new.
Ask for Help When You Need It
The need to digest vast quantities of information and make decisions independently is a significant source of pregnancy stress. Making the right choices for your needs and your child’s needs is a demanding task, so it’s important to ask for help whenever you need it. Seeing family, friends, employers, and support groups as valuable resources takes some of the burden off your shoulders.
Vent, Process, and Move Forward
Many of us turn to friends and family to vent about our stressors. This is normal, and when done correctly, it’s a healthy way to relieve pregnancy stress. When venting, it’s crucial to get assurance from the people you rely on that your venting isn’t causing them an undue burden. Wondering if you’re harming relationships by reaching out is only more stress on your part.
It’s also wise to look back to these venting sessions if the same stress weighs on your mind. Use these talking sessions as a chance to voice your concerns, process the anxiety that created them, and find ways to quell those concerns moving forward.
Be Kind To Yourself and Your Body
Pregnancy involves changes to your body, how you think about the world, and your relationships with other people. It’s not always easy to paint these changes in a positive light and use positive language when talking to ourselves. Make a habit of being kind to yourself with affirmations about your body, mood, and every change you see occurring.
Start Making Arrangements Early
A significant part of pregnancy stress is the amount of planning and preparations parents-to-be must make. Adapting the home for baby life, organizing your work to lessen the impact of your absence, and mentally prepping for what’s to come is easy to panic over.
While this stress is impossible to eliminate entirely, making arrangements early takes away from the urgency. Everyone will plan for the birth of their child differently, but making incremental progress on birth plans, parenting readings, and decision-making takes away from that final trimester stress.
Pairing these four strategies to get you through pregnancy stress with self-care techniques makes it much easier to survive the next few months with your sanity intact. Learn these skills now so you can adapt them and share them with your little one later! You’ll soon be living with another tiny human trying to understand the bright, loud, stressful world, too.
