EMOTIONAL WELLBEING This section details the emotional challenges you would face during your pregnancy and provides you with answers on how to manage your emotional well being during your pregnancy.

Emotional Wellbeing during Pregnancy

Rest and Relaxation

Rest in pregnancy is as important as a good diet and your body makes sure that you take enough of it. Due to hormonal changes, you feel more sleepy than normal and you also tire easily. You wonder how you used to manage your daily routine earlier.

It is important to take a brief nap everyday, even if for 10 minutes. It is important for you and your baby.

Relaxation

Relaxation is not just physical but also emotional and mental. You have to learn to really unwind and not think about the hundreds of things that were in the past or that you can do in the future. Easier said than done but still it is not too late to start attempting. Pregnancy is a good time to learn to relax and the various techniques like yoga and exercises or it can be as simple a sitting in a comfortable chair, closing your eyes and mentally shutting off.

Sleep

It is paradoxical that you need to sleep more in pregnancy but cannot because of lots of discomforts in pregnancy. There are certain tips for the same

• During the early weeks

You feel very tired at this time because of hormonal changes and increase in the metabolism of the body. But because your mind works overtime at this time and increased frequency of urine because the uterus is squashed in the pelvis, you find it difficult to have a peaceful sleep.

Try to learn relaxation techniques and sleep whenever you have feel like sleeping rather than waiting for the sleeping time or for the work to get over.

• During late pregnancy

At around 30 weeks, your bump makes it difficult for you to sleep try out the following -

1. Try lying on your left side with pillows tucked in below your bump and in between your knees
   
2. Exercises and yoga are a permanent solution
   
3. Take a warm long shower with essential oils like lavender oils.
   
4. Avoid stimulants like tea. Coffee, and aerated drinks.
   
5. Try to take some rest in the daytime as overtiredness can cause further problems in sleep.

• During the final weeks

Final weeks brings those lovely times when your baby actively kicking, twisting and pushing against your bladder. All this makes you even more miserable when trying to sleep.

Nothing much that you can do except get up and read something interesting or doing meditation. It is better than tossing and turning in the bed waiting for those sweet dreams to come.

I get troubled by strange and vivid dreams. Does it mean anything?

It is normal to have vivid dreams in pregnancy. it may be because of hormonal changes or because of disturbances in sleep. That may be either because of full bladder or that your baby has decided to kick. Whatever, do not worry  as most of the other women who are pregnant also experience the same thing. 

Also read ...

1. You and your Partner during Pregnancy
2. Sex during Pregnancy
3. Common Anxieties during Pregnancy
4. Dealing with Stress during Pregnancy
5. Alternative Therapies during Pregnancy
6. Massage during Pregnancy