The Fathering Project News
Supporting Your Mental Health Balance With Life Balance
We all need to find a comfortable balance that includes time for all the aspects of our lives that we feel are important including family, work, physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing and social time. Life balance doesn’t just happen, you have to create it by prioritising what is truly important to you, taking control of your life plan and scheduling in your priorities.
Everyone’s life balance is different and will alter as the needs of your children change and demands of work evolve over time. Finding a comfortable and healthy balance for you is something you need to work on and fine-tune over your life-time stages.
Maintaining a balanced life is becoming increasingly more important for your personal health and well-being in a fast-paced, modern world. Neither the human body or brain function well when under pressure and stress.
Being aware of, and taking control of, your life balance can help reduce stress as it helps you to make better decisions and healthier choices for your wellbeing. It can also help you to reduce anxiety or guilt about setting boundaries and saying ‘no’ to those things that are pressuring you in order to create a more manageable load.
Most importantly for your children, it allows you to be ‘present’ and positive when you are with them, and not distracted by worries and pressures of other areas of your life being out of control.
Top Dad Tips
- Identify your priorities. Work out what is important to you at this stage of your life. Try not to juggle too many big projects at once. Small steps done well is the best plan.
- Manage your time. Use a weekly calendar and map out your priorities to create a typical week with time allocated to our priorities (family, work, exercise, leisure, relationships, etc).
- Schedule family and kid time into your week. Book in family time, dad’s time and kid’s time.
- Multitask and overlap activities. Exercise with the family, eat meals together, introduce your kids to hobbies you enjoy and do them together.
- Schedule some ‘you’ time as well. Don’t feel guilty; this time is important for your health and wellbeing as a dad for your kids.
- Try to ‘switch off’ from work at home (phone calls, emails, overtime).
- Explore work options around flexible work hours and working from home.
- Pace yourself. If you feel yourself getting burned out, don’t hesitate to clear your schedule, reset, and recharge.
- Don’t postpone making changes. You might regret it. Time doesn’t stand still.
If you are struggling, call Lifeline on 131 114, Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636, Mens Line Australia on 1300 789 978.
SPS Dad’s Group
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