Here - Health Promotion Agency

Your own life
124
FOR HELP
Contact NHS Smoking
Helpline on 0800 169 0 169
between 7am and 11pm every
day. As well as helping you over
the phone, the adviser can also
tell you where to find support
locally and will send you a selfhelp
guide packed with
information about how to stop
smoking. People who use
professional support are more
likely to be successful in stopping
smoking. In Northern Ireland
contact the
Smokers’ Helpline
0800 85 85 85 or the
Ulster Cancer Foundation
(028) 9049 2007
0800 783 3339 (helpline)
www.ulstercancer.org
‘I think the tiredness is the
worst thing. It goes on and on.
And you’ve got no choice,
you’ve got to keep going. So
you feel sort of trapped. And
after a bit, it gets you down,
feeling so tired all the time.’
‘You come in from work and
you start right in on another
job. And then when you’ve got
them off to bed, there are still
other things you’ve got to do. So
you drop into bed and there’s
been no breathing space. You’re
probably up in the night as
well. And then you get up the
next morning and start all over
again.’
(A FATHER)
•
Get support. Tell family and
friends you have decided to stop
and ask them for their support.
For example, ask them not to offer
you a cigarette.
•
Anticipate problems. Which
situations will be difficult? Don’t
just wait for them to happen. Plan
how to deal with them.
•
Take one day at a time.
At the beginning of each day,
congratulate yourself on having
made it so far, but make your goal
to get through today without
smoking. Never mind tomorrow.
•
If you need to put something
in your mouth, try sugar-free
gum. If you need to do something
with your hands, find something
to fiddle with – a pencil, coin –
anything but a cigarette.
SLEEP
Most of the time parents just live
with tiredness. But when the
tiredness begins to make you feel low,
bad-tempered, unable to cope and
certainly unable to enjoy things, you’ve
got to find ways of getting more sleep
or at least more rest. Just one day, one
night, one week, could help.
•
Get to bed early, really early,
say for a week. If you can’t sleep
when you get to bed, do
something relaxing for half an
hour beforehand, whether it’s
exercise, soaking in a bath or
watching television.
•
Deep relaxation can refresh
you after only five or ten
minutes, so it’s worth learning a
relaxation technique. You may
find books, tapes or videos about
this at your library.
•
Sleep when your baby sleeps.
Rest when (if) your child has a
daytime rest, or is at playgroup or
nursery school. Arrange for a
relative or friend to take your
child for a while, not so that you
can get the jobs done, but so you
can sleep. Take turns with other
parents to give yourself time to
rest. Set an alarm if you’re
worried about sleeping too long.
•
If you can, share getting up in
the night with your partner.
Take alternate nights or weeks.
If you’re on your own, a friend
or relative may be prepared to
have your children overnight
occasionally.
•
Look on pages 55-56 for other
ways of coping with disturbed
nights.
•
Do something about any stress.
Tiredness often comes from stress
(see below). If you can do
something about the stress, you
may be able to cope better, even
without more sleep.
COPING WITH STRESS
Small children ask a lot of you, and
there’s a limit to what you can ask of
them. But perhaps the greatest stress
comes from coping with the rest of
life at the same time as coping with a
baby or small child. You can spend a
whole day trying to get one job
done, but never managing to fit it in.
Just as you start on it, your baby
wakes up, or a nappy needs
changing, or your child wants
attention. Sometimes you can feel as
though life is completely out of
control. And if you’re not the sort of
person who can take things as they
come and not mind about what is or
isn’t done, you can get to feel very
tense and frustrated.