Relaxation techniques.

Being a new Mum or anticipating childbirth can be very stressful so use these simple relaxation techniques to help calm you.

Being a parent, particularly a Mum who is generally the primary caregiver, especially initially, is probably one of the hardest times of your life.

I am sure you know sleep deprivation is a form of torture and you are likely to be suffering from that especially in the first 8 weeks when they don’t know day from night.

Then there is the crying of your precious newborn, that you can’t make sense of, which is distressing beyond words. It is hard.

So, relaxation is really important to incorporate in to your day as a new or expectant mother. A really easy and useful relaxation tip is to just deep breath. When we are largely sedentary in the first few weeks/ months we forget to deep breath. Shallow breaths are not helpful for relaxing.

Deep breathing helps you to relax, it delivers oxygen to that tired brain. Concentrate on that deep breath, thinking about bringing energy giving oxygen into all the parts of your body and then consciously and intentionally, breathing out all the stress, tension, fears and tears that comes with being a new parent. Thinking about these simple but important actions helps take your mind away from the stresses of your day, the things that you can not change or can not provide an answer for.

If like me, you stay in the room while your baby is settling to sleep you have a lot of time on your hands. You may let her cry/ not cry but it is a trying time whatever your method. Another blog is on strengthening exercises you can do in this time; Exercise Routine while your baby is Settling to Sleep. This is also a time when you can focus on deep relaxing breathing.

“Deep breathing helps you to relax, it delivers oxygen to the tired brain...”

An alternative exercise though is some yoga moves. The salute to the sun shown below incorporates a few moves and involves some quite appropriate stretching, hip flexor and hamstring stretch, back extension etc. I would not advise the lunge parts in the early stages postnatally until your pelvis is stable and can handle the leg separation under load. Wait around 6 weeks but get it checked out by a physiotherapist if you have pain, are feeling unstable or had previous issues with pelvic stability

You may have heard that repeatedly saying "shush" to your baby when they are upset is meant to calm them, as it is meant to sound similar to the familiar blood pulsing in utero. However, I found it very helpful to calm me when I was doing it in the middle of the night with a baby that I couldn't seem to stop crying. The "shushes" were sometimes a few fast forced ones which help release my tension rather than crying or screaming myself! I then could return to slow, calm and methodical shushing which often (but definitely not always) calmed her down.

Another way to relax is to tense your muscles as tight as tight as you can for 5-10 seconds and then breath out relaxing the muscles. This gives instant relaxation to those muscles and again allows you to distract yourself from tensions by thinking about the simple task.

“This gives instant relaxation to those muscles and... distracts yourself from tensions...”

My Mum would constantly remind me to relax my shoulders when Misaki and I were learning how to breastfeed. This was when I was having all these painful issues such as ripped nipples and mastitis and I was tensing up in preparation of the pain of her latching on. Stress increases cortisol and pain. It was serving no purpose but can you blame me?! I used these tense and relax techniques to help me through this.

Try these techniques at home. An alternative though is to get a massage or have someone guide you through a meditation session. Some physiotherapists are trained to teach meditation techniques and definitely can give you a therapeutic or relaxation massage. 

I am signing off now to do some deep breathing so that I can hopefully fall fast asleep as quickly as possible! Good night.

Summary

Being a new Mum is hard.

We are largely sedentary spending most of our time breastfeeding or sleeping so we forget to deep breath which is very helpful in relaxing.

Deep breathing, yoga and contract relax techniques are just some ways you can incorporate relaxation into your busy and exhausting day.

Melli Tilbrook is a Physiotherapist based at Adelaide Physiotherapy and Pilates Studio, Beulah Park.