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Mom Brain: Better for you than you might think! {Episode 33}
107 Plays5 years ago
Mom Brain...that special thing moms have where they can't remember words, forget their shoes (or children!) and show up for appointments on the wrong day. In this episode, we dive deep into the brains of mothers to discover more about Mom Brain, and discover a few interesting positive things about this phenomenon. (Stay tuned for the outtakes at the very end where we provide some very real examples of just what Mom Brain sounds like!)
Mom Brain Recommendations:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Welcome
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. And we're homeschooling moms to a combined total of 18 children. We know firsthand that motherhood is full of crazy chaos and overwhelming obligations, but it should also be full of love and laughter. Regardless of where you are on your journey, come join us as we work together to find joy in the chaos of motherhood.
Episode Milestone and Listener Review
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 33. I can hardly believe we're up to episode 33 and I'm so excited to dive into this topic we have today. But first of all, we have a review and a humor segment for you.
00:00:45
Speaker
Yeah, we'll start with the review. It is called, The Mom Pick Me Up I Need from ABB11018. I really enjoy listening to Bonnie and Audrey and love learning from their experiences. They do such a good job of addressing topics in a way that feels inclusive of families, big or small. As a mom of two, I still feel I am able to connect with what they say. Their approach feels really thoughtful and genuine. Great job, ladies, keep it up. Mom's totally worth the listen.
00:01:10
Speaker
Oh, thank you so much for that. That's really sweet. And I'm grateful to hear that. I'm glad to hear that families with just a few kids also feel like it's relatable because we know families come in all sizes. So we hope that there's something you can get from us no matter what your family looks like. Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks. And when you guys leave a review, it helps other people find us on iTunes. So we really appreciate every written review and every rating that's left.
Mom Brain Moments
00:01:37
Speaker
All right, so I have a humor segment. This one probably falls under the category of crazy bomb moment.
00:01:45
Speaker
So after I had, I think it was child number five, and I've talked in the past about how my husband encourages me to go and take a class or something afterwards just to kind of get out and reboot my mom brain. So it's totally appropriate for today's topic, mom brain. So my oldest daughter was interested in photography. So her and I went down to the community college and we took a class, signed up for a class on digital photography.
00:02:14
Speaker
And so we got ready and we went to our first class and I pumped milk and left it behind for the baby and everything was good. And we walked into the class and we sat down. Okay, so we sat down at the computer desk and I stuck my feet out in front of me and looked down and realized I had on two different shoes.
00:02:39
Speaker
Completely different color, completely different style, two different shoes. Not even like a black and a navy?
00:02:47
Speaker
That's pretty bad. Oh, no. So I'd gotten dressed and driven all the way there with all the way with two different shoes on. And I elbowed my daughter and I showed her and she's like, Mom, stick your feet under your skirt or something. So nobody notices. She's so embarrassed, right? How dare you, Mom? Oh, yeah. Anyway, one of the one of my finer mom, mom brain moments there. At least you brought shoes.
00:03:13
Speaker
When we were researching this subject, I read an article that said something about a woman who knew she had mom brain when she showed up to work without shoes.
00:03:26
Speaker
That's really bad. That's really bad. Although random tip, but I feel like I should share this here in Arizona. It's really common for people to really, really sad, but very common for people to accidentally leave kids in the car when it's hot and it's deadly, right? It can kill a child.
00:03:43
Speaker
So I read a tip once that if it's hot or cold, like if it's a dangerous time to be in the car and you want to make sure you don't forget your baby, I do this especially when I'm the only one with my baby because I'm not looking in the backseat, right? And my baby's quiet. I throw one of my shoes in the backseat while I'm driving. And I know that I'm not going to get out to go to the store without a shoe. So I always reach back there to grab my shoe and see my baby.
Understanding Mom Brain
00:04:05
Speaker
And I know that sounds silly, like who's going to forget their baby, but it happens every year, which is so sad.
00:04:09
Speaker
Random tip for those with suffering from mom brain. Keep your baby safe by keeping something important or your wallet or your phone backed by your baby. Yeah, yeah, totally appropriate for this mom brain episode.
00:04:22
Speaker
So we're going to split this episode on membrane into three parts. What is membrane? And then membrane, the word, the term comes with a lot of negative connotations. So we're going to talk about the pros of membrane. And then the third topic we're going to cover is tips for dealing with membrane.
00:04:41
Speaker
Yeah, sounds great. So first of all, the what? Okay, so it's not really a technical or a scientific term, obviously, but it has come to be known as the changes your brain goes through during pregnancy or right after birth. And it actually does, it is really a thing. And those changes are designed to help promote the caring for your children. They're designed to help make you a better mother.
00:05:05
Speaker
Right. Exactly. So the way that it manifests itself might be like forgetting words, forgetting your children, forgetting your shoes. Yeah. Forgetfulness is a big one, but then also like taking your kids to an appointment on the wrong day. I guess that's tied with forgetfulness, but you know, all these other things that make you just kind of feel like there's something that matter with your brain. Right. Right.
00:05:31
Speaker
So they've done actual studies and there are physical changes in the structure. So they do brain scans and they look at moms during pregnancy and after giving childbirth and before having children, before pregnancy, all that, and they see actual physical changes in the structure on brain scans. So it really is a thing. There really is something happening with our brains.
00:05:55
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's a relief. I thought, seriously, I was going crazy sometimes. Yes, totally. And here's an interesting thing. So usually you hear mom break, but when I was doing some research on this, I also saw articles entitled parental brain because they've also seen something similar happen to fathers. And as a side note, the more involved fathers are in the care of their kids, the more their brain changes as well, which is really interesting.
00:06:20
Speaker
There's something related to caring for your children or being the primary or majority caregiver that actually alters your brain, which is so strange. That is so cool. So kids make you crazy is like proven science. Yeah, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. It's going to make you crazy.
00:06:39
Speaker
Yeah, I found a quote that was so good. It's from thecut.com. And I want to actually read it. It's about structural growth. So researchers observed significant structural growth in several brain regions, including the midbrain region, which plays an important role in developing what we call maternal instinct. And in the prefrontal cortex region, which is involved in decision making, learning, and regulating our feelings and thoughts over the first three to four months of motherhood.
00:07:08
Speaker
So during that time, these areas in the brain actually exploded and experienced significant structural change in growth. I think that is so amazing. Yeah, that's really amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do find it interesting that so much of our... We'll talk more about the pros in a minute, but so much of the research that we did talks about the pros of these changes, which is awesome. Because most of the time, I think as a society, we focus on the negative. I can't remember anything anymore. These kids are driving me bonkers.
00:07:38
Speaker
But we will say right up front that another physical factor in the degradation of our brains or whatever we want to call it, the downside of this mom brain is sleep. In all honesty, the lack of sleep during pregnancy and early childhood is huge.
00:07:57
Speaker
Anyone can tell you, scientist or not, that if you're not getting adequate sleep, learning becomes more difficult, memory retention becomes more difficult, just functioning on a whole and emotional health, et cetera. So that's a big factor to remember as well. Oh, yeah, totally. We have a whole episode on sleep and helping kids sleep and stuff. But it's just crazy how sometimes moms can function on so little sleep. But then, really, it is affecting us in our brains.
00:08:28
Speaker
Okay, so I found research that showed that changes last at least two years following giving birth and maybe even farther or more permanent. In fact, listen to this one. This one is really cool. Here's another quote. This one comes from Greater Good, a Berkeley.edu.
00:08:46
Speaker
When researchers scanned the brains of the same women two years later, so this is women that had given birth, the changes remained in place, suggesting they may be permanent. There were no similar changes in the brains of first-time fathers or childless men and women. In fact, the pattern was so distinctive that it could be used to tell whether a woman had ever given birth. Whoa, that's crazy. So you just scan their brain and know whether or not she had a baby?
00:09:14
Speaker
Yes. Isn't that amazing? That's so crazy. I love that quote. It's not like, it's not like all in my mind, but I mean, actually, yes, it is all in my mind.
00:09:25
Speaker
Okay, it's interesting though that they said for at least two years following birth because guess who had all our kids two years apart? Guess who hasn't had a functional brain in 14 years? Bad baby. Interesting. I guess I've had some pros along the way, but also any of the cons have held strong. I'm basically probably going to be a genius when I stop having kids. Give me a couple of meters at the end and I'm going to be like, you know, curing cancer or whatever. Einstein, yeah.
00:09:56
Speaker
Okay, so to talk a little bit about what we found, the researchers and experts have told us that there are organizational changes in the brain. So you guys might have heard that, not to get too technical, because we don't know all the technical stuff, but you might have heard the term neuroplasticity, and that just refers to the process where the brain changes its neural pathways by creating new ones, right? Because we get new experiences, we're exposed to new things, and motherhood is about the newest experience
00:10:23
Speaker
you know, one could ask for. Everything is different. Your hormones, your body, your sleep patterns, your, you know, connection with another human being that didn't exist before, etc. So your brain is creating all these new neural pathways. Some of them will be negative, let's be honest, but some are really positive. And in some of the research I read,
00:10:41
Speaker
It hints at the fact that your brain might actually retain the positive more strongly than the negative, which is probably why we have more than one child. It's really, really interesting, you know? Yeah. So another time when this reorganization of the brain happens is when a person is learning a new language, which is very interesting to think about that, like parenting is kind of like a new language, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:11:05
Speaker
So we react differently to similar things in the past because our brains have been rewired. So here's the last quote I have to read, and I just love this one too. So it says, if a mother hears her baby cry, it's very hard to ignore and continue to do what she was doing. We have this very strong urge to go and check on the baby and console the baby. That strong motivation is supported by brain activation.
00:11:31
Speaker
When we present the sound of a baby crying to her mom, we can see which brain areas light up or become active during that period of time. Among many regions, we see a very strong response in the brain region we call the reward circuit, which is the circuit that responds to other things that are pleasant and rewarding like food or sex.
00:11:50
Speaker
In mothers, though, the thing that activates this brain region the most strongly are baby cues. So listening to her baby cry, seeing her baby smiling really strongly activates this brain circuit more than probably many other things that were previously very rewarding in her life.
Emotional and Cognitive Changes in Parents
00:12:07
Speaker
So that's really interesting and makes a lot of sense as to why it's okay for dads to let a baby cry it out, but not moms. It seems moms have a much harder time just sitting there and letting their baby cry. And that's a good thing, right? And that's biological.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I have been telling my kids lately that I'll hand the baby off to somebody and I'll be fixing supper and they'll have the baby in the next room and he'll be kind of fussy or something. And I'll just be feeling so uptight and frustrated. And finally I've explained to them, if you bring the baby in the same room as me and I can see him and he's fussing, I'm going to get a whole lot less angry than if he's two rooms away and fussing. And I can't see him and my nerves are just getting.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, you don't know what's happening to him. You don't know if he's being taken care of. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. This week has been hard on me. We've been really just stressed out with school starting and everything. And my baby was sick. And I had like a pinched nerve in my back. So it was hard for me to hold him. And so the hardest part was hearing him cry and seeing him. And it was like these two halves of my brain were going, pick up your baby, pick up your baby. And the other half was like, no, it hurts. It hurts.
00:13:16
Speaker
I was like, wow, this is really, really a strong thing. I mean, obviously no one should let their baby, you know, suffer and cry at the age. But like we are biologically designed to take care of those little ones. Really interesting.
00:13:29
Speaker
So other than these organizational changes that we talked about, obviously there are the hormonal changes, which affects every aspect of our body, but it also affects the brain. One thing that we found in the research was that it makes us more emotional as mothers. You know, we always blame our hormones on, you know, crying at commercials when we're pregnant all the time, you know, or I'll read an old quote from my kid when he was little and tear up or what happened the other day. Somebody, I watched a video on Instagram and I'm sobbing at the end. I'm like, what is wrong with it?
00:14:00
Speaker
So yeah, that's a really typical thing is to be more emotional and that's for good reason. We'll talk more about that in just a minute. Right. We have oxytocin in our bodies, which is the hormone that helps us forget the pain of pregnancy and birth. We have a lot of that right during and after birth. And it helps us forget the pain of pregnancy and birth. Otherwise, none of us would ever have more than one kid, right?
00:14:24
Speaker
Yeah, but it also works to help us forget difficult parenting experiences like like we forget how hard it was, you know, be up at two o'clock in the morning with, you know, twins or whatever, because we just forget it's these hormones that are making making us feel good about being parents.
00:14:43
Speaker
Yeah. There's all these wonderful experiences, but there's also some negative experiences. And I feel like if our bodies had the choice to dwell on the negative ones, yeah, everyone would have one kid and be done. Yeah. But maybe not. You know, it depends on what your body wants to dwell on. And our brains are predisposed to dwell on the positive. So I guess that's good.
00:15:00
Speaker
In addition to these hormonal changes making us more emotional, they can also make us more empathetic as mothers. So this comes across in a multitude of ways and helps us a lot as parents. So for example, if a random person trips and falls in the park,
00:15:15
Speaker
You'd probably be a little concerned, but make sure they're okay and move on. If a child falls, if your child falls, it's like a whole different ball of wax, right? Are you okay? In fact, I've had to override that. I'm sure you found this too, Audrey. When a kid falls, trips and falls, if you freak out, they freak out, right? So, you know, I have to go, oh, oh, whoopsie.
00:15:37
Speaker
But that goes against your innate desire to double check that they're okay, because you feel you are just really empathetic towards them, especially your own child, you just feel what they feel. And I've noticed, like, you know, we mentioned earlier that mom brain gets blamed for a lack of cognitive skill, you know, like forgetting things or not being able to maybe do math as well, or, you know, all these skills that you've developed in your earlier years.
00:16:02
Speaker
tend to like falter with this mom brain or whatever. But the pro to that is that you have an increase in love and empathy. And so maybe your brain is just choosing to focus on the love and the feelings aspect of parenting instead of those concrete skills, which you, you know, might not need as much. Right. Exactly. So the changes you were mentioning, they are about our own children the most. So they did like brain when they were doing MRIs or brain scans.
00:16:32
Speaker
They showed pictures of just babies in general and watched the mom's brains and then they showed a picture of their own baby and that was like the biggest changes or responses in the brains of mothers. So there's definitely a whole bunch of hormonal stuff connecting us with our babies.
00:16:52
Speaker
Yeah, I've also heard similar things to babies of adoptive parents that that happens even in adoption, which is really fascinating. That's awesome. The biological changes can actually be mimicked through adoption because the mother knows that this is her baby. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, that's awesome.
00:17:11
Speaker
So, we've talked about mom brain a lot as a postpartum thing, but there really are significant brain changes that happen during the pregnancy itself on a physical and cellular level. So, these changes start right when we become pregnant, those hormones start pumping and our body is getting us ready for parenthood. Yeah. You should have heard all the outtakes that Bonnie and I would make when we were podcasting and we were both pregnant.
00:17:37
Speaker
Especially that last month, oh my goodness, we could not have, we could not string a coherent sentence together between the two of us. Oh, I know it. Go back and listen. So the actual name of that is, let's see if I can say this, psychoneuroendocrinology, which is the term for pregnant women having difficulty remembering words that actually have a term for it.
00:18:00
Speaker
It's a thing. Now, the question is, will we be able to remember this term tomorrow? No, I forgot it already. Guaranteed no.
00:18:09
Speaker
This morning, this morning, I was trying to come up with the word versatile, and I could not think of it to save my life. And my husband's throwing all these words out. I'm like, no, no, no, no. And that's the worst part is right there. Like, I know it's there in specific word. And when it comes, I'll know it. But oh, man, so frustrating. That's the that's the similar. I was trying to remember a word. I was texting my daughter and it was
00:18:34
Speaker
Oh, shoot. It kept auto correcting to a word that was very similar, but I knew it wasn't the word that I wanted. And now, of course, I can't remember either of the words. Of course not. OK, so the researchers have also said that some parts of the brain increase during pregnancy. So that's probably like what we were talking about, you know, more love, more empathy and even more
00:19:01
Speaker
potential to rescue your children or save your children when they're in danger, like the mom intuition like we were talking about as well. And then other areas physically shrink as well. And some of that happens directly postpartum. So some of that is only available to us during pregnancy.
The Dual Nature of Mom Brain
00:19:17
Speaker
So cool. Amazing. Amazing what our brains are doing.
00:19:20
Speaker
Okay, so now we're going to discuss the pros of having membrane because, you know, there's a lot of cons. We've talked about it in this episode and everybody who's listening, who's experienced membrane probably views it as a negative, but we have found some things that we would consider pros about having membrane.
00:19:38
Speaker
Yeah, like we mentioned just a little bit already is that it makes us better equipped to be a mother. So if you don't have love or empathy, good luck being a mom, right? And so an increase of these feelings and the capacity to think like a mother helps us become more motherly, obviously. Yeah, things that would have made me so angry if somebody else would have done it before I had kids. So when one of my kids will do it, like, you know, take a Sharpie and scribble on my leather couch.
00:20:06
Speaker
Well, you know, it's just my little sweet baby and they didn't really mean to do that. It's true. It's true. It's true. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So another pro of having mom brain is that we develop mother's intuition. We have a whole episode about this episode 27 and we do deep dive on that, but it's something that's really cool. It's an instinct that kicks in. It's definitely something in our brain, hormones, all of it connected and we just don't have it before we have
00:20:36
Speaker
We are a mom, so it comes with mom brain. Yeah. And I don't know about you, but I've never had like a brother-in-law or a neighbor call me and say, hey, I just had a feeling you should go check on your kid. I mean, maybe it happens, but it happens all the time to me because I'm in charge of them. And I have this superpower that tells me, you know, when my kids are in danger, when they might need extra help. And I have to think that that's something that our brains are given as an extra gift to be a good parent, you know?
00:21:04
Speaker
Another pro is we're given the ability to put our baby and children first above other priorities. So I just have a quick little example of this. When I was going through college, I looked into a number of different educational and career opportunities. And finally, when I finished my bachelor's degree, I decided that I wanted to go to PA school, so physician assistant school. So we moved here to Arizona and I checked out all the local schools. I did all the prerequisites I needed to do at the local schools, and then I applied to two of them.
00:21:32
Speaker
In the meantime, I had gotten pregnant with my first baby and I had him right before maybe two months before the interview process started for PA school. And so I had a new baby at home, I pumped some milk, I went off to an interview and I thought I did a pretty good job in the interview and I walked out in the interview and all of a sudden it just hit me that I was supposed to be a full-time mom. And I'm not saying that anybody else's decision is wrong, but for me personally, that was going to be the right decision.
00:21:59
Speaker
And for a minute, it was a little bit painful, admittedly. I had just spent, you know, years preparing to go to graduate school and to have this career that I was really excited about. And I was just going to give it up because I felt like my kid needed me instead. And then after about those two minutes, I was fine with it. I realized, no, this is my priority right now. And so, you know, sometimes your priority will be your career or sometimes it will be something else. But if your children need you more than something else as a mom, you'll be able to do that.
00:22:27
Speaker
even if it's painful, you know, because I think that your brain is telling you this is what your children need from you is you. So really interesting. If you're feeling the urge to do that, but don't know if you can afford it, go listen to our episode. It's one of our actually most popular episodes on how to afford kids episode 25.
00:22:45
Speaker
Okay. And one final pro of having mom brain is, um, we discussed this a lot in episode 31, but I feel like I'm getting better at things with the more kids I have. I feel like I'm more organized. Um, I can also run a business and raise nine kids at the same time.
00:23:01
Speaker
I can do more things. And a lot of people, I know you and I have both said this Bonnie, that a lot of people express amazement. How do you do everything you do? How do you get it all done? And it's just like my brain is more sharp. It's more capable. It's better honed. I think it's the word I'm looking for.
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, I agree. Well, but you have to think about it. As far as a career and motherhood goes, you and I have been doing it a little bit longer than some. And because we have more kids, we have more experience crammed into those years. So think about a new person going to work for a big Fortune 500 company, right? He's a grunt worker. He's just doing like
00:23:42
Speaker
pushing paper, whatever, he looks at the CEO and he's like, how does that guy do this? How does he last through these 50 hour weeks and manage all these meetings and all these committees and get all this work done? Because he's been doing it for years and he's gradually added more things to his plate that he can now manage everything all around him and multitask.
00:24:00
Speaker
And from motherhood, it's the exact same thing. So I was super overwhelmed when I had one kid and then two kids and then three kids. But gradually you get overwhelmed with bigger and bigger things instead of the smaller things just because of experience. So now it's not unusual for me to breastfeed a baby while I'm making dinner and helping somebody with math and answering a phone call. It's just because we've been doing it for longer and had a lot more
00:24:23
Speaker
on our plates for longer.
Managing Mom Brain
00:24:24
Speaker
So yeah, that's definitely a thing. I agree a hundred percent. And I had thought of the same example too, of somebody working their way up through the company, through a company gradually. So yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So our final segment is tips for dealing with membrane to help you, uh, you know, get a little bit of relief.
00:24:44
Speaker
Okay. So just like our bodies are changed after giving birth, our brains are completely changed after giving birth too. So there's no way of going back. And we wouldn't want them to right after we talked about all those pros. We want to keep those. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So one thing that I have found very helpful is skin to skin contact with my kids, with my baby, especially, because it also is something that rewires the brain. Um, there is actual physical changes that happen when with skin to skin contact. And I'm going to,
00:25:11
Speaker
I recommend a book at the end that talks a lot about this. But if you're connected to your baby and your children, you know, like physically touching them or close connection, your brain can kind of stop worrying about that part and work on other things. Yeah. You know, I never really thought about that aspect that your brain is actually calmed down a little bit when you're connected, when you're physically touching somebody. So when I think of skin-to-skin contact, I always think of, you know, new babies holding them up against your chest in the hospital or person or whatever.
00:25:37
Speaker
Um, but when you mention it like that, I think about when I'm out and about with my kids, if I can hold somebody's hand, I feel so much more secure. Um, they're not going to run away. I know where they are. I can kind of sense how they're feeling or if they're struggling with anything that way. Um, same thing. If a kid is struggling at home, I'll pull them onto my lap and kiss them and hug them. So anytime that we're feeling overwhelmed or like things, we can't get everything done. I feel like that skin to skin contact is really important.
00:26:03
Speaker
Yes, exactly like we talked about in our episode on traveling with kids. I think something you and I both do is baby wearing and that helps us calm down a little bit and know right where that, at least, you know, right where that baby is. And that's kind of a calming thing too, to have them wrap up. Yeah, I've had that happen a lot. Although another funny mom brain thing is that I'll be at the store holding a toddler's hand and all of a sudden go, where's the baby? And the baby's strapped to me.
00:26:30
Speaker
That has happened once, not twice, multiple times, like the sunglasses that are on your head, only it's a child. Yeah. Yeah. Good time. Done that. Yeah. OK, so back to sleep. We're talking about getting adequate sleep. This is an important tip for solving that mom brain negative aspect of it.
00:26:52
Speaker
If you're forgetting words and dropping balls all over the place, sometimes we just need to take a break and get some more sleep. And like we said, there's a whole episode about that, how to find more sleep for you and your little ones. So go take a listen. Yes, exactly. Like instead of trying to get something done while your baby's snapping, maybe just it would be helpful to just recharge during the night. Yeah, I really wish you'd have been around when my three oldest were little Audrey because that was my problem all the time. Oh, maybe you sleep out and get all the things done and you're exhausted.
00:27:19
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Another super important thing is healthy diet. So just take care of yourself. Put yourself up there on the list of people that you take care of, because if you're not healthy and in good condition to take care of your kids, everybody's in trouble. If mom ain't happy, nobody happy.
00:27:40
Speaker
Yeah, so something I've been doing this summer just for a little bit of accountability is I make myself a salad for lunch most days of the week, at least five times a week, because I've got a greenhouse and a garden just full of
00:27:56
Speaker
things that are healthy to eat. But something I've been doing this summer is I'm posting them on my Instagram account just in my story. So it's a little accountability thing like put a pretty picture of a salad and then the list of ingredients that I've been eating. And other people are loving it and saying, hey, thanks for posting this. I'm going to go make this salad or it makes me hungry or inspires me to eat more salad or whatever. But
00:28:19
Speaker
For me too, it's an accountability to make sure that I'm getting something healthy at least once a day instead of just cleaning up, you know, goldfish crackers off my kids plate as I'm cleaning up the table. I think I ate two half eaten muffins this morning and a half eaten peanut butter sandwich. And then I was like, I think it's time for a salad.
00:28:36
Speaker
And of course, in line with the healthy diet comes exercise. And I know this is talked about nonstop when it comes to motherhood that you need to get out and exercise while all facets of life. But I would offer this, don't overthink the exercise option.
00:28:50
Speaker
You may have been a triathlete or a marathon runner before you had kids, but once you've had a bunch of little ones, it might just be time to take a little walk or run up and down your stairs while you're taking laundry. Just something to get your body moving, preferably in fresh air. This is totally me. I'm totally preaching to the choir here. When pregnant, can't run those last couple months because running is kind of my drug of choice. I love running as exercise. So the last couple months of pregnancy,
00:29:17
Speaker
This last time I made it a goal to walk every single day and got a couple of really good audio books on my phone so that I'd be motivated to do it and it was so awesome. Those couple of months that I otherwise would have just spent inside laying on the couch because I was too miserable to move really got me up and motivated and moving for the day and I really think helped my mental clarity and my, you know, emotional state.
00:29:37
Speaker
Absolutely. Exercise always helps me mentally too. So the next thing is thyroid function. Keep track of your thyroid and where it is and keep it healthy. This thyroid is really important in not only childbearing and taking care of your kids, but also in regulating your hormones and
00:30:00
Speaker
your metabolism and so much is dependent on your thyroid function. So get your thyroid checked out or take steps naturally, whatever is your method of taking care of yourself, but keep your thyroid in good shape and this will affect your brain in a big way. Yeah, totally.
00:30:16
Speaker
Another tip is managing those stress levels. Now, every new mom knows exactly what I'm talking about because everything just seems overwhelming. But try not to take on extra projects. If you're not prepared, try not to make things get more difficult on you. And if at all possible, ask for help. I know this is so difficult. Every mother wants to be the super mom that she thinks everybody else is. But trust me, we all have our limits. I was just talking about this on my Instagram stories today. We all have our limits. And when we need help, we need to get help or else, you know, bad things can happen. So take care of yourself.
00:30:46
Speaker
Absolutely. And along with healthy diet, get some extra supplements if you need it, or probably as a mom, just you need it. Put it up there. We give you permission to get extra supplements. There's probably a whole laundry list, alphabet list that we could talk about of supplements, but just to mention one here specifically for moms is DHA, and you want to make sure to get enough of that.
00:31:10
Speaker
When you're breastfeeding, if you don't have enough DHA in your breast milk, your body will actually take it from your own brain to put it in the breast milk for the baby, and then you'll be really foggy. That's probably what I needed to start thinking about. Yeah, so like fish oils and that kind of thing is where you can get
00:31:33
Speaker
DHA supplementation, but on the happy side, it will also help you sleep better, get better sleep. Yeah, cool. And then I would also say, you know, just check in with your emotional health in general, mention this a little bit when talking about stress, but a few things that I like to do, and I'm not super regular with any of these, but when I am, I always feel better about myself, is both keeping a gratitude journal and a regular journal.
00:31:58
Speaker
So, the gratitude journal helps me when life gets low, right? When things are chaotic and you're miserable and your baby's screaming and everything's falling apart. Keeping a gratitude journal reminds me, I have children. I have these precious babies that I love or I have on the roof over my head. We have food in the fridge, you know, to be grateful for those little things. And then a regular journal so that you can look back on that time and remember, oh, that was a difficult time, but see, I made it through. That's just really, really valuable.
00:32:23
Speaker
Other things that have helped me in my emotional health are time away from my baby if possible. So a lot of this we're kind of gearing towards new moms, but this applies to anyone with children. You need time away from your children to think, have some quiet and kind of get back to yourself. Time developing talents or working on a hobby or a business and getting help with household chores so that you don't feel overwhelmed.
00:32:48
Speaker
Yes. Some things that I do definitely to help me remember things is I make lists. I'm a huge list maker. I'll sit down at the beginning of the day and make a list. And even if I don't get through the list, at least I have it down on paper so I can remember that I want to do it or that it needs done. I like to use a planner and we'll link the one that I actually use in the show notes. It's the happy planner. I like that one.
00:33:12
Speaker
Um, then sometimes in my feeling, especially sluggish, I'll do like crosswords. I'll pull it a crossword and just try to, it seems counterintuitive because you know, if you can't think of words, how can you think of words for a crossword? But your brain, my brain will just start, you know, kind of pulling things from the cobweb dustier regions of my brain and start clicking along a little smoother. And then also I like to try to read a little bit more challenging literature or books. I know there's a lot of books out there that you could read and
00:33:39
Speaker
Maybe these aren't as enjoyable, but they do, I feel like, touch different areas of my brain or make me kind of reach into, you know, even advanced vocabulary. So try to try to help my brain out in those ways. Yeah, I agree. I was going to say the same thing that reading for me has always been a way to develop my vocabulary. And that's probably one of the hardest parts for me is losing some of my vocabulary because I was a
00:34:03
Speaker
really voracious reader as a kid and I feel like I'm losing basic words, but to continue to put them into my brain is hopefully going to help that. And then also it's funny that you brought up crosswords because my thing is Sudoku. I love Sudoku. I love number puzzles. And so I'll just stash it somewhere. And when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I just settle my couch and do a puzzle and it helps me kind of decompress.
00:34:26
Speaker
And that's not for everybody. Maybe you're decompressing is a television show, whatever it takes, but something to help you to relax or get organized or decompress whatever your body needs and mind needs at that time.
Practical Tips for Organization
00:34:39
Speaker
Yeah, my son was telling me the other day that my college son was telling me that your brain needs time to rest as much as it needs time to work. So that's something to keep in mind too. Yeah, that's interesting too. As a doer and a goer, I tend to fill every spare moment of my life with some sort of something. If I'm not working, then I'm listening to a podcast or if I'm not doing that, I'm reading while I'm breastfeeding. Sometimes you just need quiet and you just need
00:35:10
Speaker
Nothing, you know, just space. Yeah. Breathe. That's why meditation is so good. Yoga, et cetera, to just clear your mind and let it rest. Yeah. Yeah. That totally hit home for me too, because I'm just exactly like you. Gotta always be doing something.
00:35:28
Speaker
Okay, now we have some recommendations. I will link these things in the show notes. I mentioned DHA and I'll link the exact one that I use that's been helping me and the happy planner that I use. I really enjoy that one. It's a good layout for me.
00:35:43
Speaker
And then the book I mentioned earlier about skin to skin contact is called The Vital Touch. So we'll link all those in the show notes. Yeah. One last thing about organization that I wanted to share that I just remembered is having some sort of command center in your home. So I've had a calendar on my fridge for years, but just this year we started by putting a chalkboard up in the kitchen or you could do a whiteboard or just a bigger calendar, whatever. And whatever is on the docket for that day, I write on the chalkboard.
00:36:10
Speaker
So that helps both me and the kids just keep a handle on what's going on that day. Nobody's surprised. I don't forget appointments because every five seconds I'm glancing over and I see what's coming up next. So that's just a tip for keeping life in order when it feels like you are dropping balls everywhere.
Closing Thoughts and Listener Engagement
00:36:27
Speaker
Do you have a blog post? No, but I am planning one. So I will do that. Okay. Yeah, we can link to that. And that's all we have for you today on mom brain. Hope you enjoy this episode.
00:36:39
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in. If you've enjoyed this episode, we'd be so grateful if you'd leave us a written review on iTunes. If you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at OutnumberThePodcast at gmail.com and find us on Instagram at OutnumberThePodcast. See you next week.
00:37:07
Speaker
I messed up on my story a little bit. That's right. Can we start? Yeah. No, it's okay. We'll just keep going. Okay. Yeah. They think that... Sorry. Sorry.
00:37:30
Speaker
Oh, that is fascinating. And just goes to show why dad's okay with letting baby cry it out and mom is not. Oh, sorry. Hold on. I'll say that again. Actually, give me just one second. My daughter's at the floor. I'm going to pass them off. Okay. I didn't think that would be very appropriate to have my baby crying in the back of me saying,
00:38:00
Speaker
You can't ignore a baby crying. You were talking about dance, not having the same. All right. OK, so where was I? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Mom brains. But oh, sorry, I think I might be talking about this later. OK, I'll just say that a little bit. Right, exactly. And if you want to.
00:38:31
Speaker
What's that, Bunny? Oh, I don't know. Shoot. Is it way back there? Oh, 25. OK. What's the word? I don't know what's the word. My brain is just.
00:38:57
Speaker
Obviously, there's no, not 100% way of getting relief because, or back to the way you were, because just like our bodies are physically changed from having babies, our brains are, we've discovered through research, our body, our brain. This is so funny. We have all these outbreaks in the end because we can't talk, we can't remember words. What's that thing that happens when you forget words when you're a mom? Oh, I can't remember that word.
00:39:33
Speaker
Okay. Um, another thing is thyroid function and the keep, keep a, you know, you may have been a triathlon or a triathlete. Sorry. I'll say that again.
00:39:53
Speaker
whatever is your juju. I can't, but I can't come up with words. I just might come out. That's fine. I get you. Okay. Are we done? Yeah. That's it.
00:40:14
Speaker
Did you want to say anything at the end or are we good? I don't know. What do you think? I feel like we should at least say that's all we have or something. I don't know. What do you think? OK. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Finish it up.