We Used to Know how to Chill Out

Being a Mom Changes Everything

We know that becoming a mother is the biggest change a woman will experience in her lifetime, for tons of reasons - physical transformation, identity shifts, responsibilities, relationships... everything.

When you become a parent, a number of nervous system changes take place that you need to know about.

1. The system itself changes. Your system becomes more tightly wired for survival, to keep them alive!

2. The load on the system grows. You have more demands on you.

3. Resets become rare. Your old go-to ways of self regulating are no longer available.

Let's break these down a bit.

1. Nervous System Changes in Motherhood

Pregnancy and postpartum are whole being transformations.

Not just physically, but also emotionally, mentally, hormonally, and neurologically. These complex shifts affects your brain, your stress response, your sense of safety, and your ability to regulate emotions.

For example, during pregnancy, the brain undergoes significant structural changes including ​growth in the amygdala​, the region involved in emotion, fear, and motivation. Powerful hormonal changes drive these adaptations: progesterone increases to support pregnancy, while ​cortisol rises​ to prepare your body for labor and motherhood.

These changes increase a mother’s sensitivity and responsiveness to her baby’s needs. Amazing. And they come with a big side effect of heightened anxiety and reactivity.

This is why nervous system awareness during pregnancy is so supportive. Observing your patterns and using effective tools gives you a compassionate and constructive lens through which to understand the new and different (and sometimes crazy) ways you may feel.

💡 Need-to-Know: The journey of parenthood makes your nervous system more sensitive. ​

As you transition into parenting, your nervous system becomes intricately attuned to your child's well-being. This heightened sensitivity means that perceived threats to your child can trigger responses in you as if they were direct threats to your own safety. When you have a new baby, your whole being exists to keep them alive and well.

And this change doesn’t stop at infancy. Parenting is like having tentacles from your own nervous system entwined with your child’s world, so that any threat to them registers in your body as if it were happening to you. Your child falling and scraping their knee, or not making the basketball team, or getting rejected by a friend, can actually feel, to the parent’s nervous system, like a life-and-death threat.

Add to that the delightful nuance of the threat your child will pose to your nervous system through direct attack (frequently waking you up, tantrums, yelling at you, calling you names, arguing with you, and more future fun!)

The truth is that you may feel more reactive, more emotional, or more easily overstimulated. All of this is normal.

But it also means your self-regulation strength matters more than ever from now on.

2. The Load of Parenthood

For moms and dads both, the demands of parenthood are huge. All-consuming. All-encompassing. You are needed day and night, and in ways that you never knew you'd be needed.

💡Because it is our biological imperative to keep our child alive, it is a constant load on our nervous system.

First and foremost, we experience the provider load. The provider load is your actual responsibilities to logistically care for them.

• Diapering,

• feeding,

• play-dating,

• driving them around,

• getting dinner on the table,

• paying for their activities...

Our nervous systems also register from day 1 the relational load. The relational load is your is your actual responsibilities to connect with and guide them.

• Comforting them,

• Helping them learn to use the potty,

• teaching them to share,

• spending quality time with them,

• Supporting them emotionally...

There is a third broad bucket of demands on us, that are largely outside of our control which is our inner life. Our inner load is all we feel inside, menatally, emotionally, and physically as we deal with the total weight of our role.

• Wondering if they are on track developmentally,

• Feeling back pain from carrying them around all the time,

• Comparing their outfits to other kids,

• Hoping they will excel in life,

• Striving for their happiness,

• Worrying about where they are and when they'll be home...

Regardless of whether you are the mom or dad,

💡the demands on you and your nervous system grow exponentially when you become a parent.

3. We Used to Know how to Chill Out

We used to know how to de-stress. It was called 'The Weekend'. We could sleep in, we could go out and party, we could get out in nature for a hike. Even if we worked on the weekend, the bartending tips were taking care of our fundamental needs. We had a rhythm of completing our stress cycles, however imperfect.

A huge change of parenthood is that we don't have the time or freedom to do these things at will.

After having a baby, we get awakened often in the night and early in the morning. The toll that sleep deprivation alone takes on the nervous system is massive, and has a trickle down effect to making everything else harder. When we are short on sleep, we are short tempered, our immune systems struggle, we're more negative and we make more mistakes.

The truth is- We already know how to unload our stress. We've been doing it since we were little. We ask for a hug. We snuggle up with a blanket and a good book. We get some snacks and a movie. We take a nap or get to bed early. We call our friends, we go for a jog, we write in our journal. By the time we have kids, we've figured out how to calm down.

However, calming down becomes a whole new skill that we have to re-learn as a parent.

Without the freedom of time and body that we used to have, and with the addition of parenting demands, our windows for restoration become itty bitty.

Before we can learn how to manage the stress load, we need to get really basic and start at the beginning.

We need to recognize our nervous system state.