How I Handle Stress as a Single Mother
The relationship that I’ve had with stress throughout the last several years has changed quite a lot. I went from a constant state of vigilance when I was going through divorce, to the recovery period that followed where I tried to develop a new normal. I feel now that life has settled with new challenges, like being the head of household and breadwinner for the family. It’s clear to me stress isn’t something that I can eliminate from my life - there will always be pressure points. However, I’ve learned to identify sources of stress and how to manage them.
Ultimately, I’ve learned that I can only really focus on the things I can control and accommodate or coexist with the stresses that are a natural part of life for me right now. Here is my approach to the main stressors in my life:
Start With What You Can Control
As I mentioned before, I put my stress into two categories: what I can influence and what I can’t. It became easier to take action when I started to think about and separate stressors in this way.
Work Stress: Protect Your Boundaries Early
Work can easily bleed into everything if you let it.
I’m fortunate to be in a workplace that respects work-life balance, but I also actively protect that boundary. If it’s not urgent, it doesn’t come home with me. That decision alone has helped me avoid burning out.
If you’re someone who cares about your work, this matters even more. It’s easy to get consumed with a project that want to work through, but knowing your daily limits and how it can set you up for longevity can ensure you stay physically and mentally well. In the early days of building my new career I used to burn the candle at both ends and get carried away by inspiration. I can’t say that I never do that anymore (sometimes inspiration strikes) but I find it to be the exception to my way of working than the rule.
The same thing goes for personal projects tied to my career. I work on these things after hours and make sure they don’t encroach on my sleep. Without that structure, these passion projects would take over all my free time.
Exercise Stress: Make It Work for Your Energy, Not Against It
Exercise is a form of stress we choose on purpose. It’s meant to help us grow stronger, not push us further into exhaustion. Unfortunately, for the past few years, I’ve been trying to hold onto old fitness habits thinking I could still do the same things when I was younger and recover the same way. I’ve finally faced reality and accepted that my body and ability to bounce back has changed. I’m now kinder to my body and approach training differently according to what my body is signaling to me.
For me, the key has been timing and recovery. I train in the morning because that’s when I have the most energy. Trying to work out at the end of the day was unrealistic and usually didn’t happen. I’ve also changed how I train. Instead of pushing through five or more days a week (through training splits on different parts of the body on different days), I focus on full-body workouts with proper rest days. I started to recognize that even if I was only working one part of my body, I was registering a feeling of systemic stress that wouldn’t be relieved until I took complete rest. It was something that I’ve worked with my physio to figure out over time.
If your life is already demanding, your training needs to support you, not drain what little energy you have left.
Home Stress: Simplify More Than You Think You Need To
Running a household on your own comes with constant, low-level pressure.
Even with helpful kids, the mental load doesn’t go away. Cooking, cleaning, school routines, finances. It’s always there. My solution has been to simplify wherever possible. I am unabashedly an imperfect homemaker and I think our lives are better for it.
I keep fewer things, stick to simple routines, and make choices that reduce upkeep. After my divorce, I chose to live in a unit instead of a standalone home because I didn’t want the added responsibility of maintaining outdoor spaces. I might be an extreme example of letting go of household responsibilities where I can, but finding what works for you and your sensibilities is really the point. Afterall, your environment should support your life, not compete with it.
Health Stress: Being well shouldn’t be taken for granted
Stress isn’t always just mental or situational. For a long time, I was dealing with ongoing allergies and breathing issues that left me feeling below my best most days. Managing that took energy I didn’t realise I was losing. Once I found treatments that worked for me, everything felt lighter. I was fortunate to find a ‘silver bullet’ to remove this specific stressor, but that still requires maintenance.
If something in your body feels off consistently, it’s worth paying attention to. Improving your baseline health can remove a layer of stress you didn’t even realise was there.
The Stress of Uncertainty: Get Support Sooner
Uncertainty is one of the hardest types of stress to carry, often because you’re dealing with something theoretical. If you have a need to control or plan your life strictly, this can be an especially trying type of stress to experience.
During my divorce, it felt like there was no clear end point. That kind of stress sits in the background of everything and you’re still expected to function normally in your life. During that time I made the effort to talk to a mental health professional, and it really did help me transition into learning how to deal with that discomfort. It also helped to hear from other people who had gone through the same thing and come out the other side.
Sometimes getting perspective on this particular fear/stress is helpful in reducing it or coexisting with the discomfort. I can truly say this was one of the most valuable lessons that I learned during my divorce. Now that I’m further along, I still have moments of uncertainty, but I also have techniques and perspectives to help me live with it.
A More Realistic Approach to Stress
At some point, I stopped trying to build a stress-free life. Instead, I focused on building a life where stress was manageable. Some things can be changed. Others need to be worked around. The more honest you are about that, the easier it becomes to make decisions that support you.