Nikki Bella Reveals The ‘Unhealthy’ Habits She Ditched To Help Her Balance Work & Motherhood

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Nikki Bella feels like a brand new woman after welcoming her first son, Matteo, with Dancing With the Stars champion, Artem Chigvintsev. The Total Divas star, 37, gave birth in late July — just one day before her twin sister Brie Bella welcomed her second child, a son named Buddy. Inside their digital cover interview with HollywoodLife‘s sister site, SheKnows, the Bellas describe their “newfound self-care superpower” after welcoming new babies in 2020.

For Nikki, self-care is a combination of mediation and working with a life coach. “Self-care to me is definitely mental and physical. I feel like mentally, when I’m taken care of, my outsides just look amazing. So I’m very big on meditation, also I have a life coach,” she said, explaining, “I just feel like we give our cars oil changes so they never break down. So why not do that to our souls and our minds so we don’t have these meltdowns or get into certain places that we don’t want to be in.”

When it comes to balancing Zoom calls and working from home with a newborn, Nikki has a blanket rule — “[Matteo’s] first.” — “And if people around me don’t like that, are those people I want to be surrounded by?” she said. Ultimately, “I realized that living more simple is definitely self-care for me. I live that hustling lifestyle and I love it,” Nikki continued, adding, “I realized that all this stress I was carrying was just making me unhealthy in so many different ways.”

Along with her newfound mom power, Nikki’s adopted another superpower that’s helped with her overall self — saying ‘no’ to things that aren’t as high on her priority list. She explained, “I kind of was more fortunate because I had an excuse, becoming a new mom and figuring out that life. So people were very understanding when I was simplifying everything and not always being a part of the hustle — it was like my hustle kind of changed in a way that I knew I wanted to be the best mom ever.”

On the other hand, saying ‘no’ doesn’t come as easy to her sister Brie. “What was hard for me is to kind of let people know. ‘No’ is always hard for me to use. But once I started to get used to that — and realized people aren’t as offended as I thought and that they totally understand — it made it become easier,” the mother of two said, admitting, “I’m still working on stuff and there’s still some stuff I want to release out of my life, just so I’m still not overwhelmed and so crazy busy. But it’s about getting used to using ‘no,’ and starting to put yourself first, which is a really hard thing for both Nikki and I to do.”

The Bella twins’ SheKnows digital cover and interview is available now.