Being a mother can be an exhausting job filled with constant highs and lows. For some, it can be increasingly overwhelming and feel like you’re barely making it through each day with your sanity intact. Trying to strike a balance between work, being a supermom and managing a home can sometimes take you over the edge. Finding ways to reduce your stress levels and keep your spirits high, however, is essential to your well-being. If you don’t, it can be easy to begin to decline emotionally and even impact your physical being. Here are a few ways that you can lead a healthier lifestyle, all while juggling kids and work.

Take Time to Relax

Women are often expected to be magical multitaskers who perfectly juggle their many responsibilities. The reality is, however, that women are humans no matter how super they may seem and are prone to physically break down without enough rest. To avoid over exhaustion, you should force yourself to take the time to relax on a daily basis. Leaving the dishes undone for a few hours may be annoying, but it won’t kill you. Relaxation for you could mean listening to calm music or taking a bubble bath. This could also mean changing your physiology when you’re tense, angry or anxious after a long day.

Find a Way to Vent

Sometimes life and motherhood can be overwhelming, and on days like this, you may need to vent. There are so many different ways that you can vent and relieve yourself of stress which include writing for ten to fifteen minutes a day or letting your feelings out by talking, laughing crying, or shouting. You may also choose to talk to friends, a family member, or a counselor if you aren’t comfortable talking to people close to you. You should try and find positive ways to get your frustrations out so that it doesn’t build up and lead to an emotional breakdown later on.

Recognize the Signs of Stress

When stress, anxiety, and pressure isn’t well-managed, you could turn to unhealthy means of managing these negative emotions. For some, trying to drown their sorrows in drugs, opioids or alcohol is common. Some signs of opioid addiction include uncontrollable cravings, sweating, poor judgment, and mood swings. Similarly, signs of alcohol addiction include shaking, craving, sweating, as well as aggressive and self-destructive behavior. Recognizing the signs of stress and knowing how to overcome then could help you tackle upset before it spins out of control. If you feel you are battling with an addiction already, then you should look for ways to get help and find the root cause of your addiction.

Managing all of the many expectations and responsibilities that come with being a parent and an adult can seem impossible. The key, however, isn’t in trying to do everything at once but in being realistic about how much you can handle on a daily basis. Try and stick to only taking on workloads that you can handle in order to avoid overburdening yourself. Lastly, you should look for positive outlets to pour your frustrations and worries into so that you can avoid negative outlets that could make your situation spiral out of control.