Three Steps to Reduce Stress While Pregnant

Three Steps to Reduce Stress While Pregnant

Oct 8, 2021 | Coping Skills, Mental Health, Pregnancy

Pregnancy can be stressful. While some pregnant people feel calm throughout all three trimesters, others are not as lucky. If you’re like me, struggling to relax and feeling the physical symptoms of stress, you may be wondering what steps to reduce stress while pregnant you can take.

Stress can make us feel horrible in general. It can cause headaches, nausea, difficulty concentrating, and more. During pregnancy, stress can lead to the same symptoms that may be written off as common pregnancy ailments. But you don’t have to accept this suffering. There are plenty of steps you can take to reduce your stress and the symptoms that come with it.

 

Step 1: Find Your Triggers

 

There are many factors that can lead to moderate and high levels of stress like work, family, finances, environment, grief, food, and big life changes such as pregnancy.

Identifying where your stress is coming from is key to undoing it and reducing stress while pregnant. Sit down, make a list of everything that’s on your mind. Reflect on your environment, relationships, and career. What is making you feel anxious?

 

Step 2: Practice Stress Reduction Techniques

 

Stress will not go away on its own. Instead, it will fester and increase the severity of symptoms over time.

pregnancy, reduce stress, pregnant, challenge, relaxation, pregnancy wellness, cope with stress, stress reductionSo, it’s important to practice stress reduction techniques like mindfulness and self-care. That’s why I created my 5 Day Pregnancy De-Stress Challenge. Every day starting October 18, participants will receive a self-care activity that will let them indulge in relaxation and ease pregnancy discomforts from stress (It’s not too late to sign up! Click here to join or sign up below).

Step 3: Make a Plan

 

Incorporating stress reduction techniques and self-care will help minimize and cope with symptoms of stress. However, the root of the issue (your stress trigger) may still exist. Perhaps your trigger is a situation that isn’t easily fixed or is long-term. That’s okay. It’s natural to be overwhelmed. But, you can still make a plan either with your partner, family, health coach, care provider, etc to take actionable steps for coping or working toward solving what’s causing your stress.

So, here it is – three steps to reduce stress while pregnant. De-stressing isn’t always easy and doesn’t happen overnight. But learning to put your well-being first, can make a difference.

 

If your stress leads to feelings of depression or severe anxiety, it’s never too late to consult a maternal mental health professional for help.

Natural Birth Coping Skills

Natural Birth Coping Skills

Apr 23, 2020 | Birth, Coping Skills

Coping During Natural Birth Pain. How Do I Do It?

Is coping through natural birth pain possible? This is the most frequent question I get from moms, whether they’re approaching their first or fifth birth. Labor pain appears to be the number one concern about birthing. Many believe an epidural is their only option. But I’m here to tell you, that there are more natural alternatives than you may think.

If having a natural, meaning no medical interventions, birth is important to you, then you’re going to want all the information you can get on coping with labor pain. And yes, I’m saying pain. Some educators don’t like to use the “p” word, mostly because as soon as we hear that word we tense up and think of it negatively. But I want to be realistic here. Yes, it is pain, but it’s not negative. It has a beautiful purpose and it is possible to naturally reduce labor pain through coping techniques.

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Staying relaxed and as calm as possible during natural birth contractions is very important. When we feel pain, our body’s stress response is called to action. We get a rush of adrenaline and cortisol, leading to a faster heart rate and increased breathing. This isn’t a bad thing. Our body is trying to help us prepare for fight or flight and the chemicals that flood our body actually helps reduce pain. I know, cool, right?

But the downside of the stress response is that it can quickly turn us to panic and fear if we don’t know how to control it. The trick to coping in labor is to become the ruler of your mind.

You’re already a queen. Now you need to be the queen of your thoughts by thinking positively and learning physical and mental skills to harness your power and focus.

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How Do I Learn These Skills?

You can read as many free articles and resources about labor pain coping skills as possible. However, this will not compare to learning these methods from an actual childbirth educator. Reducing pain naturally during labor requires practice throughout pregnancy and you need someone who can go in depth about these techniques and give you alternatives that you can’t get elsewhere.

This is why I’ve partnered with The Nesting Place LI to offer a new online class that deals solely with natural birth coping skills and why all of my online birth education courses cover comfort measures and coping techniques.