Children are incredible. From the moment you hold them in your arms for the first time, your life changes in ways you had never imagined before. Even if the countless, sleepless nights slowly rob you of your sanity, there might be nothing else in this world that brings you as much happiness and love into your life as your child. But let's be completely honest: Every day of parenthood presents new challenges.
Whether it’s the disaster zone they’ve made out of the children’s room, the dirt and paint (fresh paint, hah!) they’ve gotten on the walls, the 30-minute recap of the last episode of Fireman Sam that they insist on telling you, the diaper or band-aid they wake you up for in the middle of the night… These situations are more than enough to drive you a little crazy (despite all your love for your kids).
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, where the new normal means your home office now includes children in the background (because the daycare is, of course, closed again), everyday parenting is not easy. With little annoyances somehow bothering us now more than usual, this whole “together forever” thing is slowly becoming more of a curse than a blessing.
As such, it’s now especially important to find effective and healthy ways to switch off and calm down — and it’s here that CBD can be a wonderful resource. Here are a few tips we’ve collected for stressed parents to help you manage your everyday life in a more relaxed and cheerful way so you don’t go mad.
IT ALL STARTS WITH A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP
For parents with children under six years old (maybe even a little older), you know that something is always going on with your kids — and it usually happens in the middle of the night. First they need their bottle. Then as they get older, your little darling needs to go to the bathroom or has a bad dream or some creative idea at 2 a.m. For parents with young children, restful sleep is more like a distant dream.
Unfortunately, a bad night usually affects the rest of the day as well, leaving us feeling more irritable, less patient and we can barely concentrate. Forget about being productive. To make the most of the few hours you spend relaxing in bed, we’ve already listed out a few tips for using CBD to help you sleep better.
In general, good sleep goes hand-in-hand with relaxation. Anyone who goes to bed worried and stressed continues to worry and stress out while dreaming (more like a nightmare). Once the kids are in bed, the toys have been put away and the kitchen is clean again, a relaxing soak in a lavender-scented bath is a great way to top off the night.
While living under these stressful times, it’s also very easy to lose sight of togetherness and unwittingly neglect your partner. A nice couple’s massage can work wonders. Aside from massage themselves providing amazing relief, intimate moments of physical closeness can bring new fire to any relationship and lead to other (ahem) relaxing moments, after which many couples sleep better.
START YOUR DAY WITHOUT STRESS
For most people, stress is like an old acquaintance that still creeps up on us every day. We’ve almost forgotten that it doesn’t have to always be that way. Stress — and constant stress, above all — is a disease-trigger, mood killer and poison to every relationship. For parents, it has an added effect because our stress is easily carried on to our children, whether it’s through our impatience, bad mood or a just a general lack of mental presence. All that makes us feel even worse and then the vicious cycle continues. Wouldn't it be nice if we could manage our day with less stress in the first place?
As already mentioned, staying asleep — and falling sleep — are important for stress resistance. Once you've mastered this area, some of the other problems of everyday life might solve themselves. But what if you need a little more help? More and more parents in the U.S. are using CBD to unwind. Even small doses of CBD might help you cope with situations that are usually stressful. That’s why some parents begin their day with little hemp vitamin gummy or a piece of CBD cosmetic to help prevent stress from getting the best of them. This carries on through the rest of the day, and the otherwise snowball effect of stress and anger instead turns into a rainbow of calm and serenity.
Somehow breakfast with the kids seems less chaotic, the traffic jam on the way to school feels less stressful and your third (and totally unnecessary) meeting of the day goes by a lot more quickly. And as we work from home, where the line between family and work becomes very blurry, anything to help us avoid stress in one side of our life from spilling over into the other is appreciated. All of us want to be good parents, being in tune with ourselves (and managing our stress) can help us get there. 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦
