Slow down, Mama

You’re don't get more done. You’re just get more stressed about it.

How I let myself slow down

“The quickest way to show your nervous system that you’re not being chased by a tiger is to slow down.”

I saw this reel on Instagram ages ago and ironically, it came to mind every time I was sprinting to preschool pushing a 75kg triple pram, not daring to stop to check what Jerry might have chucked out. Families would leap out my way in the tight alleyway so I could charge through. TBH the brakes went on that pram long ago, and once I built up speed I couldn’t exactly stop.

And that’s what’s happening here.

Since my piece last week about unsubscribing from the cult of busy, so many mums have told me that they feel addicted to busy but want to stop.

The problem is: when you’ve normalised mum life at the pace of sprinting from a tiger, you can’t just slam the brakes.

If you’ve just realised you don’t want to run anymore, pull up a chair, there is another way…

First, the to-dos

Part of breaking up with mum guilt is choosing “Priorities not perfection”. I’ll do a deep dive next week, but basically it’s about thinning out the to-do list and making sure you’re spending your resources (time, energy and cash) on the things that actually matter to you. And you alone. This takes courage, but the rewards are great - you get to ditch the stuff that doesn’t matter.

Second, the mindset

Plot twist: it turns out cutting down the to-do list is only half of slowing down.

If I think back to previous preschool holidays, I wouldn’t necessarily have achieved much more professionally than I managed this time (a couple of calls where I begged my mum/husband to cover me). The key difference is I’d be giving myself a hard time about it. I’d fret over not being able to reply to emails for days. I’d worry about how it would look if I was honest and told people I couldn’t attend our Friday meeting for weeks due to lack of childcare. In short, I’d try and make it look like it was business as usual when it wasn’t. Ultimately, I put myself under so much pressure that my mental health took a hit.

This time, I didn’t fight it. I accepted it. This is a pinch point. Resources are down. Expectations need to go down. I didn’t try to work (or make it look) as if it wasn’t a school holiday.

What I stopped

• Noisy numbing. Picture the scene. It’s 5:30pm the triplets have just finished dinner and are running off to play before bathtime. They are shouting wildly. I have no desire to chase after them or clean the kitchen, which is now trashed. I put the kettle on and reach for my phone for a few minutes’ break. I scroll on Instagram or look browse Vinted. Noisy numbing feels like you’re giving your brain a break when you’re actually just stuffing your brain with more noise (images, text, information) not giving it the quiet it craves.

• Task switching. Picture the scene. You’re in the middle of making the breakfast when you get a WhatsApp notification to a message with a link to an Instagram reel. You hop on Instagram to check out the reel. While you’re there, you run through all your notifications and start replying to a DM. Just then, the toast pops so you’re back to making breakfast. Each time you switched tasks there was a cognitive cost. Every time you jump from one thing to another, your brain has to stop, reset, and reload, it’s not multitasking; it’s constant restarting. Part of your attention stays stuck on the last thing (like a mental hangover), so you’re never fully present in the next. Do that all day and it keeps your brain in a low-level stress state: scattered, reactive, and far more exhausted than the work itself would justify. Trust me, I know all about this.

• Lack mindset. In short, I ditched the FOMO. Yes, not staying on top of my professional networking WhatsApp group meant I probably missed cool opportunities but, hey, there’d be others. We can go slower and still win.

Pic: Hammock Time

What I started:

• Gardening with my kids. I recommend this for anyone. Even when I lived in a flat, I managed to climb out a window onto a flat roof to grow courgettes. The triplets love getting muddy, digging, and pushing the wheelbarrow around. Every day, we check the tomato seedlings to see if they’ve grown. There’s something really satisfying about the slow pace of growth. As a bonus we get to eat it. The boys love harvesting the rhubarb and make crumble so well now they’re nearly ready to open a pop-up.

• Reading more. I’ve been devouring my guilty-pleasure crime novel (any other Janice Hallett fans here?) at bedtime instead of being on screens, but also I’ve started a new afternoon tradition with the boys. We get the hammock out, I lie in it and they can bring a book and join me. This proved so successful that every evening, I have to cart in armloads of books.
  I had put pressure on myself to arrange lots for the kids to do in the holidays but my mum (an ex early-years teacher) pointed out all they really want to do is have some special time with me. Get yourself a hammock, or at least a comfy garden chair.

• Mini mindfulness. Years ago I did a mindfulness course at the Buddhist centre round the corner from my old flat. Some of it has stuck, but a lot of it went out the window when I became a mum. Now I can bring moments back by asking my kids what they notice in nature.
  What colour is the sea today? What do the clouds look like? How many birds are there in the garden? (This last one was deployed this morning, when I was so desperate to finish my coffee whilst it was still hot I left the breakfast table war zone and sat in the conservatory. Jerry, who struggles to calm himself down, sat on my lap and counted birds silently whilst I sipped my coffee. I didn’t think “companionable silence” was possible with toddlers.)

Slowing down has given me space.

Space for the things I’ve started.
Space to think clearly, because my mind isn’t ping-ponging all over the place. Some great ideas have popped in about running some real-world events - watch this space.
Space to actually be with my kids, not half in my phone.

I feel a lot better and I’m still getting stuff done.

Over to you

Would you like to stop any of the things I’ve stopped?

What would that give you space for?

I write weekly about mum guilt, mental load, and motherhood on my own terms.

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