Taking Care of Your Kid’s Health Starts With Taking Care of Your Health

As Ferris Bueller said in the iconic 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Sadly, taking the time to stop and look around can seem like a far-fetched idea, especially if you are a working professional with several young children and are already struggling with work-life balance. Between scheduling appointment after appointment for children with various care providers, educators, etc., it can be easy to put care for yourself and your health on the back burner.

As parents, we want what is best for our children. This means that we will often sacrifice our own needs for our kids. All too often, parents focus so much on the needs of their children that they forget to carve out time for themselves. Think of it this way; if you broke your arm or had flu symptoms, you probably wouldn’t brush it off. In these cases, you’d go to the doctor. But managing our overall health by practicing preventive health care is a must for both your physical and emotional well-being.

5 Tips to Make It Easier to Care for Your Family’s Health

When things get busy, most of us look for ways to cut corners. Thankfully, cutting corners doesn’t always mean cheating the system. Check out our list of 5 tips to cut corners and make it easier to care for your family and yourself.

1. Recognize You Are Worth It

Please recognize that you are worth the effort and that you need to prioritize your own medical needs and self-care. Parents often neglect to take the time for self-care, thinking that the very act of self-care is selfish. However, if you are experiencing changes to your appetite, headaches, dizziness, or stomach upset, having trouble concentrating, or feeling stressed,  down, depressed, or otherwise withdrawn, the chances are that you have put off a focus on your health for too long.

2. Give Yourself Time

Allow yourself to take some baby steps. You don’t have to become the self-care master overnight. Start by carving out just five minutes a day for a week. Tell your spouse or significant other that you need the time and that they need to keep the kids out of your hair for just a little bit. If you are a single parent, seek time right after the kids go to bed before your head hits the pillow. Practice five minutes of meditation, or consider starting a journal and writing down your accomplishments from the day. Starting small will help you develop the habit and reap the initial benefits. Before long, you may find yourself more relaxed and able to find more time for additional self-care needs. The goal is to take small steps and build one micro-habit at a time.

3. Pick a Date For Scheduling Appointments

Have you ever read the recommendation to change all of your smoke detector batteries on the first of the year? There is a reason for this—it’s predictable and easy to remember the date. That same concept goes for scheduling appointments for you and your kids. Pick a date, say the first Monday in February every year. Mark that date on your calendar, and use that date to call the various medical and dental providers to schedule appointments throughout the year. Many medical providers and family dentists make it easy to schedule an appointment online.

4. Book in As Many Appointments As You Can

Make a list of specialists, doctors, dentists, and other appointments you anticipate needing throughout the next school year. Schedule what you can online and make the rest of the appointments all at once, so they are booked in and don’t have to scramble. By making all of your calls and scheduling as much as you can online all in one day, you’ll be set for the year or the next six months. Plus, with many doctors and dentists, planning will allow you to schedule appointments for both you and your kids on the same day.

5. Set Reminders

Set reminders on an electronic calendar so that you don’t forget to schedule appointments, and so that you have ample time to get to them when they occur. Today’s smartphone apps make it easier than ever to set reminders. However, you may wish to consider investing in an Amazon Alexa device to help. With Alexa, all you need to do is verbally tell her when to put something on your calendar, and she’ll make it happen.

Prioritize Your Dental Health With a Trip to See Dr. Alhadef

A great place to start when practicing self-care is with a trip to see your general dentist. A visit to Dr. Alhadef and the dental team at Dallas Cosmetic Dental will help you accomplish one of those items on your list, and a significant one at that. Since your mouth serves as a gateway to the rest of your body, signs of mouth trouble can indicate that something else is going on in your body. So, if you are due for a dental check-up, be sure to give our office a call or schedule an appointment using our easy online form.

We look forward to seeing you.