Are You Wearing Stress Makeup?
What is stress makeup?
Have you ever stopped to think the impact your skin has due to stress? The dark circles you get after a sleepless night post working late and struggle to put the kids to bed or the blemishes you get since you break rest to ensure you get up early to cook the perfect meal before taking the kids to school, are all impacting how you look and feel.
Whilst stress will always be a part of our daily routine, finding shortcuts, tips & tricks doesn’t make you a bad mother or a bad wife. It helps you to find more time to create lovely memories with your loved ones and spend more time on yourself versus toiling over a chore that will only stress you.
Tips and Tricks by Real Women
Who better to ask on tips and tricks of managing stress than real working women. So here is a few tips we found interesting.
The cleaning schedule
I break down cleaning tasks into daily or weekly schedules to keep my home organized and also reduce being stressed and overwhelmed trying to do all during the weekends. Eg. Laundry during Tuesday and Friday nights, cleaning garden on Saturday morning etc
Don’t be afraid to ask your employer the opportunity to work from home
When I was overwhelmed with work and managing the home front, I requested my employer for work from home. They did not hesitate a minute to offer this to me. This was the biggest blessing.
Creating a sleep routine
We introduce a daily routine for my son from a very early age. I got profession help to understand Sleep Training and wake windows which helped me develop a routine when he was just few months. This meant he slept through the night and me and my husband both got a good nights rest
Meal preparation
රාත්රී නින්දට යාමට පෙර ඉලග දිනයට පිලියෙල කරන්න ඕන ආහාර ඉවිමට පහසු වනසේ සකසා ගන්නවා.එවාගේම අවශ්ය බඩුබාහිරාදිය සතියකට වරක් ගෙනත් අසුරා තබනවා.
Negotiated screen time
I provide my kids controlled screen time. During weekdays it’s only 10mins screen time in the morning untill we get ready. No TV at home. The other trade off is they get to listen to music of their choice at anytime of the day. All these are been discussed negotiated with then and called out
Making clean up easy
I got those laundry mesh bags to separate her toys into categories so there's a bag each for-soft toys, dolls, musical instruments, kitchen toys, etc.. I keep 2 or 3 bags out at a time and hide the rest. So when she pulls out everything and mixes up the toys, I'm still less stressed because it's just maximum 3 toy bags I have to sort. Every 3-4 months, when I see that she is getting bored with the stuff that are already out I put in what is already out and take out another set of toy bags, so that she stays interested in all her toys.
Freezing food to save time
I cook the meat needed for few days and put it into separate containers with a quantity sufficient for a single family serve so that I only defrost the required quantity. This means I don’t need to spend time cooking everyday. I also get coconut grated for a week or two and keep it in the freezer. So that I always can easily prepare curries, rotti or sambol
Easy washing
I started putting my son’s clothes in the washing machine even before he was one month. I used to quickly wash to remove dirt and put it in the washing machine with a mild disinfectant.
Making shopping fun
මම ගොඩක් වෙලාවට මාසෙටම ඇති වෙන්න බඩු ගේනවා, එතකොට එළවළු, මස්, මාළු වගේ දේවල් තමයි weekly ගන්නේ. බඩු list එකට අනුව බඩු ගන්න නිසා ලේසි වගේම මගේ පොඩි දුවත් එක්ක weekend එකේ shopping යන එක අපි දෙන්නටම enjoyable.
