Research has highlighted how noticing ‘glimmers,’ AKA small moments that trigger positive feelings, can help with stress of parenting.
Dealing with stress as a parent can feel like an endless, and often fruitless task. As soon as you’ve taken some rest, something new pops up to add to the mental load and you quickly need to take a break yet again. But instead of carving out whole days to fit in some self care, science is showing that the answer to reducing stress may lie in small, seemingly insignificant moments.
What you need to look for are ‘glimmers.’ These are seemingly insignificant, fleeting moments in your day-to-day life that trigger positive feelings for you. A glimmer could be anything that brings you joy as a parent; the soft-spoken ‘I love you’ your child whispers into your ear during a hug, the gift of a drawing or card your kid has made at school, the excited wave they give when they notice you at school pick-up.
These moments are so often over-looked, but noticing them and making a bigger deal out of them can massively help to reduce stress. How? It’s all to do with positive psychology.
Research has shown that savouring positive experiences, no matter how small, increases your happiness levels. It seems obvious doesn’t it? But it’s easy to ignore those smaller positives when bigger, more worrying things are on our minds.
Highlighting these glimmers of positivity even when navigating the daily stresses of parenthood can not only reduce stress in the moment, but also over lifetimes as other research shows that noticing moments of gratitude leads to increased happiness and overall life satisfaction.
It’s not just stress that glimmers can help parents navigate. Some research has found that when parents are looking for glimmers, and therefore being present in the moment and paying attention to what is going on more intently, they are better able to control their own emotions in challenging parenting situations and have more compassion for their children.
To make the most of these fleeting glimmers, you might want to write them down. Certain research suggests that people who make gratitude lists have increased happiness and life satisfaction, with their notes allowing them to revisit positive moments whenever they need, not just when they randomly pop up.
Whether you keep a gratitude journal, a glimmer list, or just write down the sweet moments in the notes app on your phone, the memories will come back so much easier thanks to the prompting and keep stress levels down.
It’s easier said than done to look for positive moments, especially when research has shown that marriage and parenthood are harder than ever before. The fact makes it all the more important to be on the lookout for signs of parental burnout and to learn how to quickly calm down when parenting gets a bit too much.
