The Cure for Mom-Brain

Mom-Brain gets a bad reputation—we’ve all experienced it: the fog, the stupor, the yearning for more than Sesame Street-level learning! Here at Momivate, we believe in your Mom-Brain—that motherhood can actually cause you to spark new dendrites by the second, as you look for ways to solve the many mysteries and conundrums inherent in raising children! Here are some ways to set Intellectual goals (that’s the ‘I’ in our S.P.I.C.E.S. acronym) and feed your brain!

Intellectual

Long car trips and your kids are itty-bitties? Listen to an audio book or podcast on a subject you want to learn about.

Learn along with your children at science museums! The hands-on displays aren’t always for little hands. And your enthusiasm for the exhibits will be contagious — your children will soon catch on that learning is exciting, not a chore!

Take an online class. There are many free classes, it will be a great example for your kids to see you taking time to learn, and they can sit on your lap, sit next to you while you are learning, and you can even teach them what you are learning.

See https://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

Do you have a friend with children with a skill you want to learn, and she wants to learn something you can do? Sounds like an excellent skills-swap playdate!

If you don’t know how to play an instrument, think outside the box here, I’m not talking about an instrument that you find in an orchestra, or that you must master. Be average on an unusual instrument! The power is in the practice! Learning to play an instrument, “may be one of the best ways to help keep the brain healthy. ‘It engages every major part of the entire nervous system,’ said John Dani, PhD, chair of Neuroscience at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine.” (Penn Medicine News, pennmedicine.org/news).

Consider:

Steel Tongue Drum
Musical Spoons
Wish Well Tibetan Singing Bowl
Gecko Travel Cajon
Deekec Zelda Ocarina
Newlam Kalima Thumb Piano
LP Vibra-Slap

Learn a vocabulary word each day about a subject you are interested in, not something you think you should care about, but what you want to learn. You could even choose to learn a vocabulary word in another language!

Read the other articles in our S.P.I.C.E.S. series:

S: Personal Pursuits in Mothering Moments

P: Physical Goals Are Not Impossible

I: The Cure for Mom-Brain

C–S: Coming Soon

Photo by Jeshoots on Unsplash

Physical Goals Are Not Impossible!

Let’s be honest, motherhood is a challenge to our physical well-being. Whether because we are growing a baby in our womb or we just don’t have time to hit the gym, physical goals seem to get knocked off the stove altogether (not just put on the back burner!)

Here’s a few ideas, though, to change our mindset about how motherhood could become the means by which we get some physical fitness accomplished even amidst meeting the needs of our toddlers or teens.

Remember to check with a health professional before doing any exercises! The following are pointers, not prescriptions!

If you’re already on the floor with kids, do some yoga or ab work
Run around in the park with your kids or race them when you can
Use the bars at the park to do some push-ups or use those steps for step work.
Turn on some fun, loud music, and dance, especially when things get tense at home.
Do the cha-cha or something like it while vacuuming and other chores around the house
Squat whenever possible around the home – why bend over to get that bottle off the ground, “Now here we go, just bend those knees keeping your feet hip-width apart, now straight down, that’s right – now on the count of three, 1, 2, 3…squat, pick up, stand up slowly, squat, put down the bottle, stand up slowly, squat again, pick up the bottle, slowly stand, give the baby the bottle, your doing great, keep up the good work!”
Kegels are perfect while making dinner or waiting to be seated at the restaurant – trust me, Girl, your menopausal able-to-sneeze-in-public self will thank you later.
Refrain from eating what the kids leave on their plates. Just let it go.
If you’re helping kids with their homework, you don’t have to sit there! Stand, and do strength training with hand weights–which could just be a canned food item from the pantry! (Don’t do serious weights more than two times a week)
Make healthy food for everybody, with everybody. Involve the children in the planning, preparation, and clean up as much as possible! Their involvement is key to their enjoyment of the meal!

Photo by James Wheeler on Unsplash

Personal Pursuits in Mothering Moments

Here at Momivate, we know that motherhood is neither an obstacle nor an interruption to our personal growth—in fact, it’s a fast-paced fertilizer for growth!

Here are some simple-but-solid ideas for experiencing spiritual growth even amidst the busy-ness of motherhood.

SPIRITUAL

Sing the spiritual songs of your faith, and remember, “If only those birds who sang best sang, the woods would be quiet still.” Belt it out, sister!
Create something, and involve your children. The act of creation is what’s spiritual, not the result (that’s Pinterest).
Pay attention to your senses at least one time a day. Think of one thing you can feel, touch, smell, taste, see — and then, express gratitude for that experience. Studies prove that there are, “positive relationships between gratitude and wellbeing, and spirituality,” The Relationship between Gratitude, Wellbeing, Spirituality, and Experiencing Meaningful Work. (2021, Loi, N. and Ng, D., Psych 2021, 3(2), 85-95)
When on walks, look around and discover something pretty. Pause… and reflect on either the source of the beauty or the beauty alone.
Memorize a scripture or thought that brings you joy and repeat it often, out loud. If you’re not a great memorizer, write it out and put it in places in your house where you will see it. Put it on your phone as a reminder. In his 2001 Repetition is the First Principle of All Learning, Robert F. Bruner (researchgate.net) concludes, “Repetition is an important element of learning. Even in the midst of binding time constraints, look for opportunities to revisit, review, and restate.”
Practice the prayers/mantras that bring you peace, and change it up. Sometimes prayers get so repetitious we stop feeling before we realize it.
Express love to your family, write thank you notes (even thank you texts, something spiritual happens when you express gratitude)

Spirituality is the first ‘S’ in our S.P.I.C.E.S. acronym—and we’ll follow up this blog post with suggestions for each of the other letters, so you can have a flavorful personal life!

Read the other articles in our S.P.I.C.E.S. series:

S: Personal Pursuits in Mothering Moments

P: Physical Goals Are Not Impossible

I: The Cure for Mom-Brain

C–S: Coming Soon

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash