Postnatal anxiety is specific anxiety that happens post birth. Having a baby can be a worrying time for anyone and feeling anxious can actually be a usual response to becoming a parent, especially with a lack of sleep and changing hormones in the body. Self help tips for postnatal anxiety can help you in the here and now.
Here’s a few tips to help if you’re feeling anxious.
Challenge the thought.
Is the thought real? Anxiety can often come with intrusive thoughts that worry you. Is there any evidence that that thought or belief is true? A common one is the thought of collapsing. So how true is that? How many times has that happened?
Question it, it removes its power slowly.
Distraction techniques.
This can be useful shorter term. The physical response your body feels in anxiety/panic cannot last more than a few minute. The thoughts can keep the cycle going. Using distraction techniques can help stop it in it’s tracks.
Try these, or find your own;
Talk to your baby. Can be anything, playful voices also has a hormonal change to help reduce the anxious feeling.
Read number plates. Simply distracts the brain.
Feel your feet on the ground.(removing footwear can help, if appropriate)
Look for 5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell and 1 thing you can taste.
From head to toe focus on each muscle, on each out breath relax another muscle.
Sit with it, breathe it away.
Seems like the opposite of distracting but sometimes the feelings need to be heard and valued to be able to feel better. Allowing the emotional release, if safe, can help it to move on. Imagine it like a friend telling you they felt something, you may wish to listen to it and help find a way to make it better.
Look at diet and hydration.
A diet that’s lacking in some vitamins can cause the symptoms of anxiety/panic. It can be worth looking to see if there could be any changes here. Particularly things like iron, vitamin D, B vitamins and dehydration. If you feel you may be lacking it may be worth chatting to your GP.
Consider therapy.
Counselling really can help you to find out why you may feel like this and how things could be better. There are many different counsellors and many different counselling ways. It can be a case of finding a counsellor that fits. We offer counselling but you can have a search and see which service fits.
Remember that the feeling always passes! These self help tips for postnatal anxiety are just a few, you may find your own ways.