Lifestyle Changes to Lower New Mom Anxiety: What Every Seattle Mom Needs to Know
Takeaway: Mom anxiety is not always a genetic or personal issue. For many moms, anxiety shows up as a response to a lifestyle that does include the supportive resources that are needed to cope with the overwhelming parts of new motherhood. In this post, Seattle therapist for moms and founder of Nurturing the Sisterhood: Therapy for Moms Dr. Julie Franks explains why lifestyle changes is key to overcoming postpartum anxiety in new moms.
The idea that lifestyle contributes to anxiety is well-known, but it feels controversial. We are so used to hearing that anxiety is a personal problem caused by your genetics or challenging life experiences. And, to be clear, it can be. It may be for you. But regardless of the cause of your anxiety, your lifestyle influences the way your anxiety unfolds.
Your lifestyle includes your personal support network, the way your home life functions, your work environment, your financial picture, the way you interact with community groups, and your access to resources like exercise, healthy food, free time, and education.
Moms with a lifestyle that includes ample support, time for self-care, the ability to nourish their bodies, adequate financial resources, and time to master coping skills for stress and anxiety fare better. But this isn’t the norm - most moms do not have access to the resources they need to support their mental health.
So if you’re a mom who is facing incredible demands without enough support or resources, you are experiencing mom anxiety as a lifestyle problem.
Postpartum Anxiety is a Major Problem for Moms
Every mom experiences anxiety in some way (every human actually). Ideally, anxiety is an uncommon experience that signals you to an immediate danger around you or cues you in to overwhelm or burnout. But for modern moms, anxiety has become the norm - something that is so expected that moms might not even realize that it’s a problem.
In 2023, anxiety ranked as the number one reason that moms sought therapy. And that’s no surprise. Statistics show that more than 68% of moms experience anxiety with 35% saying it's moderate to severe. As a therapist for moms, I know that the numbers captured by the research do not give the whole picture. More women struggle with anxiety than is ever reported in the research.
And while anxiety is not 100% attributable to lifestyle, I know that the the environments we live in often exacerbate genetic predispositions to anxiety or cause anxiety in women who would not otherwise experience it.
How Does Lifestyle Influence Postpartum Anxiety in New Moms?
I talk with moms about making lifestyle changes every single day. But let’s back up - before we can talk about lifestyle changes, we need to talk about the way lifestyle creates anxiety.
Here are some common lifestyle factors that make mom anxiety worse:
Carrying the mental load of your household
Chronic stress in your family, work, or social environment
Not getting enough help from your partner
Chronic lack of sleep
Not having enough free time to decompress from the stress
Trying to be the perfect mom
Financial stress
Not caring for your physical body
Internalizing judgments you receive about your parenting choices
How many of these lifestyle factors are making your anxiety worse? Many moms don’t realize these parts of everyday life are feeling anxiety and therefore don’t know they can do something to change things!
Why Moms Don’t Consider Lifestyle Changes
Because many moms assume that their anxiety is all about them (instead of being about their household’s lifestyle), it is common for moms to hide their anxiety and try to deal with it alone, After all, it seems like a personal, internal problem. But this mindset prevents moms from finding new and better ways to interact with their support systems and environments. It holds moms back from making changes that can truly prevent anxiety.
You are the one who gets to decide when enough is enough. Once you recognize that a certain part of your lifestyle (whether with your spouse, friends, family, or even yourself) is affecting your anxiety, it’s time to make a change.
How to Make Lifestyle Changes that Lower Anxiety After Becoming a Mom
There’s no one-size-fits-all change that’ll completely fix your postpartum anxiety forever. But the good news is (I know you were waiting for that!), there are ways to make your household’s way of doing things work for you. It starts with examining the parts of your daily routine, figuring out which parts are adding to your anxiety, and negotiating change from your support system.
Your options for getting help with the process of making lifestyle changes includes some or even all of these things:
Work 1:1 with a therapist or coach. Therapy isn’t only for personal issues; it’s also for help with making changes to your family, household, and lifestyle. A therapist can help you identify the parts of your lifestyle that are making your anxiety worse, support you with developing solutions, and hold you accountable for making sustainable changes.
Use self-paced resources that help you reimagine the parts of your routine that aren’t working: There are so many resources available to moms who aren’t ready to commit to therapy right now - or who don’t think that would be a helpful option. My free Maternal Mental Health resource library for WA Moms is a great place to start.
Create an effective & sustainable support network to help reduce the mental load of motherhood: It’s hard to make lifestyle changes without the support of other adults who get it. A support network that functions to support you can make all the difference.
Begin Healing With Nurturing the Sisterhood: Postpartum Anxiety Therapy for Seattle Moms
I specialize in trauma-informed, compassionate care for postpartum anxiety..
If you’re ready to get started, visit my therapy for postpartum anxiety page to learn more detailed information about my approach, or contact me to set up an appointment.
FREE RESOURCESThe Maternal Mental Health Library for WA Moms
100% Educational Resources and Tips for New Moms in Seattle, Bellevue, Kitsap, and Across WA State
