Self-Regulate and Take Care of Yourself
Self-care is a bit of a buzzword. It’s often viewed as bubble baths or massages or activities that we can “go do” that will ultimately make us feel better. This blog touches on how to make any moment a moment where you are able to take care of yourself. At the end of the blog, we link to a couple of one minute movement and breathing practices that are designed for you to practice anytime and anywhere.
Self-regulation and self-care go hand in hand. While self-care can definitely be a way to treat yourself, Nestful views caring for oneself as the foundation of, well basically everything. But it’s also the foundation of being able to care for others, especially children. You can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself. We believe that one of the best ways to take care of yourself is to learn how to regulate your nervous system with self-compassion and effective mindfulness practices.
When we talk about sharing mindfulness practices with kids, our goal is to teach them how to ease their mental, emotional and physical tension. We give them techniques to manage their stress in a way that is practical. This is the ultimate form of self-care. It’s techniques and practices that help children attune to their inner lives: how they think, feel, breathe and connect to themselves.
With the goal of easing children's stress and tension in mind, it’s easy to forget about yourself along the way. But we have to practice what we preach. Not to mention, you can’t pour from an empty cup. Our kids know when we’re being authentic and real with them. They learn best through our example, especially in the first seven or so years of their life.
Caring for kids is absolutely one of the most time-consuming jobs. It’s a 24/7 gig. Moms can’t even pee alone. Teachers barely get a break to check their emails. How do caregivers find time to prioritize a mindfulness practice and promote their own self-care?
Self-Regulation as a Form of Self-Care
The first step for teaching mindfulness to children is always to regulate ourselves. The goal of easing our children’s tension can only happen when we learn how to ease our own tension. Noticing, allowing and bringing compassion to ourselves is the quickest, most radical act of self-care. We can take short pauses throughout the day to check in with ourselves, and we can utilize simple and subtle techniques to care for ourselves and regulate ourselves. It doesn’t have to be hard! Short practices and subtle shifts in our mindset are the most sustainable practices and easy to integrate into our busy lives.
What does it mean to self-regulate?
Self-regulation means we have the ability to pause and choose our response instead of reacting in a way we may later regret. The first step in sharing mindfulness with your kids is to regulate yourself.
What self-regulation isn’t about...
Regulating oneself does not mean feeling calm all the time. As humans we have multitudes of experiences and therefore a wide array of emotions. It’s normal to not always respond perfectly to every moment. We are all practicing.
Self-regulation and the nervous system
Self-regulation is like regulating the temperature of the water before you wash your hands. Cranking the water temp too hot leads to us burning our hands. Likewise, overreacting and having an outburst of anger sends our nervous system into overdrive. When we find space to pause and notice (mindfulness) we can modulate our anger and “dial it down” a bit, leading our nervous system to stay relatively even in moments of stress.
Our nervous system and our kids
Our child’s nervous system is modeled after our own. While it’s completely normal for us to go into a heightened state of panic during moments that feel unsafe, our goal is to be able to share a sense of equanimity with our kids the majority of the time. The best way to do this is to practice soothing our own nervous system.
Quick ways to self-regulate and soothe yourself in the moment
· feel the sensation of your feet on the ground
· elongate your breath in and out of your nose
· notice nature: the color of the sky, the wind blowing in the trees, the birds chirping, etc.
· place a hand on your heart and a hand on your forehead – try out these “self-holds” videos below
Subtle Mindful Movements to Help You Self-Regulate
A great way to help you notice your own experience is to use your own body to make contact with yourself. Contact provides information and subtle mindful movements can help you draw your attention to yourself and your life. By bringing our attention to our movement and our breathing, we place our mind inside our body and become embodied. Being embodied helps us to attune to ourselves in the present moment.
The video below models how to use your hands and your arms to hold yourself and cultivate attention and presence. This video is less than two minutes long, making it useful for integrating these practices into your already busy day.