How Meditation and Mindfulness Benefit Parents

When we become parents it’s so easy to get caught up in life. We live our lives just to get things done, go to sleep, and get up just to do it all over again- we turn into this autopilot zombie. When we are running on autopilot we aren’t taking time to focus on our kids, on our family, ourselves, our life. This is not a healthy way to live your life for you or your child, you are missing out on so much and affecting your relationship with your child and others around you.

Becoming a conscious and mindful parent will bring you calmness, and allow you to become aware of your life, your child’s life, and find a balance and purpose in life.

I know most moms say, “well I just don’t have time for that, mediation takes long and just doesn’t seem to work. I am a busy mom with millions of things to do and meditation and mindfulness is the last thing I have time for- to sit and listen to calming music, sure it sounds nice but I don’t have time for that.”

I totally get it, I was the exact same way. I wanted a calm life, I needed to become a calm mom, but with 4 young boys and everything else in life I do not have time for myself…so I thought. I became fascinated about becoming a mindful mom after having my twins. I talked to my doctor about how I am always yelling and angry and agitated 95% of the time I’m awake and that just was not me at all and I hated what I was becoming. 

I have been reading about mindfulness and meditation. I decided to become a mindful and mediation coach because when I started implementing this more into my life and learned more about meditation and mindfulness and all the amazing benefits it has on anyone’s life, I wanted to share it with everyone, especially moms.

Moms are the foundation of a child’s life, I am not discrediting dads at all, they are just as important in a child’s life and they are extremely important in raising a happy and healthy child too. But, moms take so much upon themselves since the second they find out they are pregnant. Our bodies and minds shift, when they are born we have an unbelievable amount of overwhelm, love, stress, worry that it takes a huge toll on us. We are in charge of taking care of a human being and raising them into empathetic and amazing humans.

So, it is so important for moms to at least try to implement meditation and mindfulness into their lives, for you and your child’s sake.

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Meditation and mindfulness is extreme self-care

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I have been hearing self-care a ton recently, I don’t know if I have just been paying more attention to self-care and that’s why, or if it’s something that people are noticing that is crucial to your mental health.

I hear a lot of people say self-care is all fine and dandy, but after my bath, my problems are still waiting for me. Yeah, that is 100% true. But, the purpose of self-care is for you to recuperate, to refresh and calm your mind. You can come back to you tasks with an open and clear mind. When you are constantly go- go-go, your brain and body start to get burnt out and that is when you can’t think right, seem like you can’t get anything done, and feel irritable. You are like a machine that is always running and eventually, you will break, but if you turn the machine off and let it rest, it starts working again. 

Meditation is extreme self-care, I’m not saying extreme as in hard, but it is so powerful and necessary for your well being. I know meditation to some people seems “crunchy” and a little foo foo (or something like that). You may picture a hippy sitting and listening to calming music with your legs crossed, and just sit there for hours. Well, that is not at all what meditation is. Yeah, you can sit and listen to music or a guided meditation and do deep breathing, but there are so many different types of meditation that you can practice. You might feel weird or uncomfortable the first time you practice, but once you start and see how great it is, you start to feel more comfortable and it’s easier to make it a daily routine- like brushing your teeth, meditating and mindfulness is like brushing your brain. 

That is the beauty of meditation, you can meditate and have it focus on a certain situation or feeling that you are having that day. You can do it throughout your day, at work, in your car, walking anywhere at any time. There are so many benefits and reasons why you may want to meditate, it is the best self-care you could do for yourself.

What is Mediation and Mindfulness

Before we talk about all the benefits and different techniques for meditation, we will talk about what exactly meditation is and what being mindfulness even means. 

Meditation is a technique that we can use to focus our attention in a non-analytical way. Meditation is a way to bring focus to your life, so you can take a step back, let your body and mind relax and refresh so you can become more focused, calm, a present with the current moment. 

Meditation allows you to retrain your attention. When you are retraining your attention it’s not just during your meditation practice, it’s in your normal daily life. You become more aware of your surroundings and your and other people’s emotions and feelings. You are able to be present and focus on the now instead of letting your brain drift and think about other things like what you need to do later or tomorrow, or thinking about an argument that you may have had. It allows you to appreciate what is in front of you now. 

Being mindful is a way for your to take in the moment and learn to appreciate what you are, what you have and life. It allows to to be more focused on your daily tasks, your child, yourself and others. When you become more focused instead of letting your mind wander you develop this part of you that turns into a better listener, shows empathy, and truly cares about yourself and others.

How applying meditation and mindfulness will help you as a parent

Scientific benefits and studies

There are a ton of benefits to practicing meditation and mindfulness other than just becoming calm and aware. Studies have shown that meditation helps your cardiovascular system and there are positive results in blood pressure. They have shown that it even helps in the treatment of cancer and diabetes. They are not saying meditation cures cancer or diabetes, but rather it helps the patient in the treatment process, they have seen that a group that was doing treatment along with meditation had much better results than those who didn’t meditate.

Meditation increases our memory and improves sleep. A very interesting benefit of meditation is addiction. They have seen that they are able to have more control over their impulses and cravings and habits. Often when you have an addiction you may be doing something then all of a sudden you’re smoking, or eating, or whatever your addiction is and don’t recall how they even got there. Meditation allows them to gain control of their attention and when their minds start to wander and think about the addictive substance they can control and shift their minds. 

Meditation and Mindfulness Make You More Productive

A good amount of us look at meditation and think, “yeah, I don’t have time for that.” But, if you think about it we have about 16 hours a day where we are up and doing something, if we take 30 minutes a day to meditate that will leave us 15.5 hours left to do our daily things. 

Like anything that is good for us in our lives, it takes practice and time, and the more we practice it will become a daily habit like taking a shower. We know how super beneficial meditation is for us, and we know that meditation increases our concentration. We have it in our mindset that we have a ton to do and we can’t take time for anything else in our lives, we don’t have room to squeeze something else in.

But, have you ever felt so worn out and tired but you keep going and don’t really seem like you’re getting anywhere or completing your tasks efficiently? If we keep going without a break we are not as productive and efficient as we think we are. We are not able to focus and concentrate because we are on autopilot and just getting things done just to get things done. There is really no point in even doing your task that you are trying to complete, and those hours you have in your day are pretty much going to waste, compared to if you take those 30 minutes to meditate. It is much better to take 30 minutes to meditate to be 100% productive in your day, then to waste half your day and not really get anything done the way they should, plus feeling irritated and worn out.

I hear you, “that all sounds great, but I really don’t have 30 minutes to spare to meditate!” But, here is the best part of mediation, you can spread those 30 minutes out and practice your meditation throughout the day! You can use different techniques throughout your day to make sure you are getting your meditation in, and trust me it will make a world of difference to your life, concentration, productivity, and mood. 

What meditation and mindfulness bring to you as a parent

• Self-compassion- By taking time for yourself it improves how you feel about yourself, and your mood. You are taking care of yourself, showing yourself love. When you are feeling a wave of emotions you can meditate through them, focusing on the emotion, feeling, and sensation you may have due to those feelings. While you mediate through these emotions you are giving yourself self-empathy, letting yourself be aware of your feelings, and validating them. Instead of suppressing them and causing more hurt, pain, and stress. 
• Happiness and Joy- When you practice mindfulness you become aware of your feelings, your emotions, and your surroundings, you become more appreciative of everything. When your child comes and gives you a hug and you do nothing but hug back and think about nothing but hugging your child, you are taking in the moment and appreciating the hug and your child. If you do that with everything in your life, it will feel calmer and that will lead to happiness and joy. 
• Problem-solving– Mindfulness gives the mind some clarity and opens the mind to have space to think and be creative with our thinking. We are able to think of the problem and look at it at all angles and explore more possibilities to solve a problem. Having a clearer mind through mindfulness doesn’t only help us come to a conclusion about a problem, but also helps how decisions are made, implemented, and assessed. 
• Listening skills- Meditation and mindfulness greatly improve our listening skills because through this practice we are building our attention, our empathy, and compassion. Practicing mindfulness allows us to not listen through judgment or criticism, but give our full attention to the speaker and listen without feeling like we need to fix their problems. We can sit there and really hear what they are saying and digest what they are saying. This takes practice, but if we just sit and truly listen to what someone is saying we will gain so much compassion and empathy, and the speaker will know they are being listened to. When you are distracted and thinking of something else and not giving your full attention or thinking of what you should say, the speaker can sense that and you lose that connection with them that they may be needing. 
• Become less reactive- Mindfulness is amazing with being able to allow yourself to take a step back if you are triggered and think about how you want to approach a situation, how you want to react to something that was done or said, and what you may want to say back. If you are feeling angry or frustrated, you can go into your mindfulness meditation and focus on how you are feeling, let your feelings calm, and then with a calm and logical mindset you will be able to approach the situation in a peaceful and emotionally logical way. 
• Mindful eating- Mindfulness also helps with our eating habits. Not only does it help us from overeating and realizing what we are eating or how much, because it’s very easy to eat and not realize how much we have eaten. But, you can take your time eating and really enjoy your food, focus on the taste, texture, savoriness of the food, bring more appreciation to food, and also will help your brain tell you that you are no longer hungry when you are really full. A good practice you can teach to your child.

How you as a parent practicing mindfulness helps kids

With all the benefits that we have just talked about, you may see how it can benefit you. But, how does mindfulness and meditation benefit your kids? Kids are always looking at us even when we don’t realize they are. We think they are in their own worlds and don’t even care what we say or are doing, but they do. We are their role models, and learn almost everything from us, especially through OUR actions. 

When we practice meditation and mindfulness we become this calmer, happier, and sincere person. We then, treat our kids the same way- with empathy, compassion, and patience. If they see us acting like this they become calmer, happier, and more empathetic. 

Also, they will learn to be interested in meditating themselves, kids can learn to meditate at any age, and there are so many benefits for kids when they practice meditation and mindfulness. 

If our kids have a calm and collected home and emotionally healthy environment, they grow up to be healthier, more caring, and selfless adults- eventually it becomes contagious. 

How to fit meditation in your day as a busy mom 

Many people think that people who meditate and practice mindfulness are detached from reality, that they are living in a fantasy world and don’t know what real life is like. That is a huge myth. Meditation is not meant for us to be in this state of mind 24/7, that is unrealistic and not what meditation and mindfulness is about at all.

What it is about is just taking a break, bringing yourself to the present, and focus on the now. Then when we are done meditating we can go back to our daily lives with a clearer, calmer, less reactive mindset.

So, how are us busy moms supposed to fit this into our lives? You can find a time during the day that you think would work best whether it be in the morning, during lunchtime (at work), nap time, or right before bed (great if you have a hard time falling asleep). 

You could also break it up into increments throughout the day. You can do it while you’re getting ready in the morning, then do a few minutes in the middle of your day to refresh your mind, and a few minutes at night. There is no right or wrong way to meditate, what is important is that we fit it in our day somehow and practice and make it a routine. Know that most likely you won’t feel some kind of ah-ha moment, or feel like a ‘new person’ right away, it takes time to get to that peaceful place and start to see all the benefits, but the key is to keep doing it and you will be happy you did. 

Different kinds of meditations

Before I learned more about meditation I didn’t realize all the different meditation techniques that there are, there are so many and each of them can help you in so many different ways. For instance, mindful meditation is where you don’t have to sit in a quiet place and do deep breathing, you can do it while you are washing dishes. You just bring your mind to whatever task you are doing, focus on everything about washing dishes- the water temperature, how it feels on your skin, how the dishes feel. You are thinking about these things and only these things without any judgement but simply what it is. 

There is love-kindness meditation, great for adding love and kindness to your life and to yourself. It gives you a sense of peace to others and yourself. This helps build self-empathy and empathy towards others, there are so many great benefits to love-kindness meditation.

Some meditations ask you to sit quietly and disengage in your thoughts. Some will guide you to engage with your thoughts and emotions. Some will ask you to make noises or chant. There are so many different techniques and you can explore what you like, and think of what you are needing in the current moment and practice the type of mediation that you feel you need that day.  

How mindfulness and meditation makes you a conscious parent

Mindfulness is probably the best thing you can give yourself as a person and as a parent, and even your child. When you incorporate mindfulness into your life you learn to appreciate things that you didn’t really notice before. We are living in a busy world where we are trained to go and if you are not doing something then you are not being productive. But, as you saw before when we talked about how mindfulness helps productivity, that is not the case. 

This practice brings self-awareness, we are able to be aware how we are treating people around us, how what we are saying and doing are affecting them. We are able to be aware of our feelings and our needs. It’s so important to think about what we are feeling and what we are needing. It is not a selfish act, it is crucial to our mental health and our mental health of others around us. 

Mindfulness also allows us to be able to reflect on ourselves. Reflection is so important in parenting, whether you just think about your day or use a journal to reflect on your day. When you reflect you will notice the good that happened during the day, and the things that could have gone better. Reflection allows us to see our strengths, which all parents need this reassurance, and it also allows us to see our faults. We can look at these and learn from them, think of how we could have handled a situation differently, and try that idea the next day. Parenting is never perfect, it’s a constant learning cycle, but we need to be open to learn from ourselves and our kids. 

Being aware of your triggers can be huge in parenting and in any relationship or environment you’re in. Being mindful of your triggers can help you learn how to deal with them and avoid them if possible. If you can’t avoid them, you can think about how you will react to them and how you can accept them and move forward with them. 

Communication is the key to avoid huge triggers in a lot of cases. We can be more mindful of what we say and how we say things to everyone in our lives. This will take a lot of practice especially in those heated moments, it’s really hard to not react and say things that you might regret later. The more we practice the better we get.

Also, mindfulness will help our communication skills because we will have better listening skills. We will know when it’s a good time to give advice or when we just need to sit and listen. Using this skill with our children is important as well, how we talk to them, what we say to them can leave an imprint on them for years and possibly their whole life. But, we can also use this to teach them mindful communication skills that will help them throughout their whole life. 

When we enter parenthood we think we know what we are getting ourselves into but really we have no idea. Many of us probably didn’t realize all the emotional and mental roller coasters that we may face. The key to parenting is to make sure we are taking care of ourselves as much as we are taking care of our children. When we aren’t feeling 100% then we can’t give 100%. How we are treating ourselves is affecting our children even if we can’t see it externally.