Viral ‘Save the Day’ trend is changing my life

“If you’re spending the whole day working or managing kids, this will give you space… it doesn’t even need to take a lot of time or energy,” the wellness coach reveals.

Save the day and your mental health in one easy step. Photo: TikTok

I’ll be the first to admit, I have a terrible morning routine.

I roll out of bed into my slippers and go straight up to the kitchen to start making food for the day.

On the way up, I might pick up a pair of discarded socks, fluff the sofa cushions, put a rogue pair of shoes back in the cupboard.

I pull out the kids lunch boxes and start making their food for school, assembly line style, then I’ll make their breakfasts, calling out instructions to wake up, make beds, have showers, get dressed.

Then I tidy some more, maybe I’ll do some vacuuming, chop some vegetables and turn on the rice cooker ready for dinner, or go outside and hang up the washing.

The kids leave for school, I’ll wipe down the kitchen and keep picking up around the house until it’s time to have a shower and start work.

In all this time, I don’t sit down, I don’t have a cup of tea, I don’t eat.

I just keep moving. 

I didn’t notice until recently when my mum came to visit and she kept telling me to sit down.

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Save the Day trend for mums

Considering how headachy and grumpy I generally am, there’s obviously a huge problem with this practice of not stopping.

But when the house is always on the edge of becoming a tip and there's work to do and kids to be managed, what else am I supposed to do besides spend every waking moment in motion?

RELATED: Prioritising self-care as a parent

TikTokker Trina Merz, who posts to the platform as @breatheintransformation, came up with the Save the Day ritual with a friend.

She explained in the video that she used to spend the whole day working, and get to the end not having done a single thing for herself.

“If we spent the whole day working, we do one thing that reclaims the day as our own,” she said.

“It became this fun thing we used to talk about all the time.

“If we had a busy workday, we would reach out to each other and say, ‘Hey, how’d you save the day?’.”

The answer might be making it out to go surfing, calling mum, going for a walk or making a delicious dinner."

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And this is the bit I love: there are lots of ways you could save the day, and “it doesn’t have to be a huge time commitment”.

“It could even be just making a cup of tea and cosying up with one of your favourite books. Anything that makes the day feel like you had some space in it again.”

Hooray for not adding another thing to the mental load.

RELATED: Is self-care possible with special needs kids?

Save the day and your mental health in one easy step. Photo: TikTok

Followers embrace Save the Day trend

Followers shared in the comments how they were adopting the practice into their lives.

“I’ve had 50-hour work weeks lately, I’m trying to do this today,” one person said.

“This is the healthiest lifestyle tip I have seen in a while,” said another.

“I literally just laid in the grass for 10 minutes and it saved my day so much,” a third person said.

RELATED: 10 actually useful self-care tips for mums

One person hit the nail on the head.

“This is both such a positive way to make time for yourself and a stark reminder of how overworked EVERYONE is,” they said.

Originally published as Viral ‘Save the Day’ trend is changing my life