Learn the essential, most important self-care practices you should be doing as a working mom. Even though everyone needs self-care, if you’re a working mom, you have needs that different than others. You’re incredibly busy and stressed. These five self-care practices will help make your daily life calmer and more manageable.

Everyone needs self-care in their lives. Without it, you can feel depleted, unhappy, unhealthy, and stressed out.

However, if you’re a Working Mom, your self-care needs are unique. You’re being pulled in many different directions. Lack of time is your biggest challenge. You may also feel exhausted from running around so much trying to get everything “done.”

Life can be stressful as a working Mom, but it doesn’t have to feel overwhelming.

Focus on a Few Things

Instead of focusing on #allthingsselfcare, I suggest you focus on a few key areas. Don’t worry about what other Moms are doing for self-care — your needs are different!

By focusing on what YOU need to flourish, you’ll be spending your time and energy on things that will make a bigger impact on life. You’ll see results and feel less overwhelmed.

Below I’ve listed what I believe are the most important habits for working Moms. Once you master your self-care in these areas, you can build other changes to your life.

If you’d like to have help with building a habit, click here to take my free e-course on how to build a habit.

The 5 Most-Important Practices for Working Moms

1. Get more sleep. As a working Mom, you need as much sleep as possible. Not only do you have to get up early to work, but your day is probably long and exhausting.

Going to bed earlier isn’t easy since you probably try to squeeze in all your chores after the kids go to bed. If you’re not doing chores, you’re finally taking time for yourself and that’s really hard to give up.

Although it seems impossible, please try your best to get to bed a bit earlier each night. 

You can start with going to bed just five minutes earlier and slowly build up to 15 minutes, then half an hour. I know it’s hard, but getting more sleep is the single most important thing you can do you for your mental and physical health as a working Mom. You work hard and you need your sleep!

2. Eat Healthier. Since you have so little time (and even less energy), it’s really hard to cook dinner when you get home. Working Moms often resort to unhealthy shortcuts form lack of time and energy. It’s exhausting to cook dinner every night!

Instead of eating processed foods, try coming up with creative solutions that will allow you to get a healthy dinner on the table without exhausting yourself by cooking each night.

Since eating healthier can be SO HARD as a Working Mom (or for anyone!), at the end of this post I have some tips on how you can do this more easily.

Also, check out my blog post on freezer cooking!

3. Invest in your Appearance. If you work outside the home, it’s important that you look polished and professional. When you wear clothes that don’t fit right or that went out of style when your oldest child was born, you feel and look dated and shabby. For your self-esteem, it’s important that you dress appropriately for whatever job you do. If you work inside your home and no one sees you, it’s still important that you pay attention to your clothing since it will set your tone for the day.

Related article: why you should wear make-up when you’re home alone.

4. Spend a Few Minutes in Silence Each Day. If there’s one habit I could magically bestow on all working mom’s, it would be the gift of meditation. As a working Mom, you have stress from every part of life. From home to work and everything in between. Your level of stress is through the roof. If you think you’re too busy for meditation, think again. It’s the best thing for you since it can calm you down and decrease your stress.

5. Stop multitasking. Working Moms can multi-task like no one’s business. We can talk and read and walk and solve a problem, seemingly all at the same time. But research shows that we aren’t actually doing more than one thing at the same time. Instead, our brain is jumping back and forth, which you guessed it, causes us stress and exhaustion. For your self-care, stop multi-tasking. I know this habit is really hard to break, but once you start, you’ll enjoy the peace you get from doing only one thing at a time. Plus, research shows you’ll actually get more done if you focus on only one thing at a time – so it’s actually more efficient!

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Ideas for Keeping Dinner Healthy and Easy

Menu Planning. Menu planning is the most important part of eating healthy. If you don’t have a plan, it’s really hard to find something healthy when you feel tired at the end of the day. Menu planning can be really easy – just jot down ideas on a post-it note when you have a few spare minutes. These few minutes of planning will make all the difference in your health. It’ll also help relieve a ton of stress since you’ll have a plan each day and know what to make.

Freezer Cooking. My absolute favorite tool for healthy, easy dinners is freezer cooking. I have a blog post where I describe how I do this. By making foods and freezing them, I get a break from cooking. The food is healthy and delicious and best of all, it’s ready whenever I need it.

If you’d like some freezer cooking recipes, join my Balanced Working Moms community!

Crockpot or Instapot. Lots of people LOVE using these tools. I’m a vegetarian and haven’t been as successful with these tools, but if you’re a meat eater, they can be invaluable. If you freezer cook AND use your crockpot, you can really be efficient!

Prep on Weekends. When I remember to do this, my week is so much better! To prep on weekends, you do a portion of the recipe in advance. During the week when you’re exhausted, assembling it is so much easier since you have parts of it done! For example, you can fry up an onion, brown your meat, cook your rice, etc. I also like to make muffins each weekend so that we have healthy snacks in the fridge. 


Related article: freezer cooking

Give Them A Try!

I hope these suggestions help you reflect on unique self-care that you need as working mom. Everyone needs self-care, but given your life, your needs are different than others.

Wishing you lots of success on your journey. You can do it, Mama! I’m here for you every step of the way.

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