For the Burned Out, Fried, and Exhausted | Emily & Amelia Nagoski

1. Complete Stress Cycles

Actively engage in behaviors to complete the physiological stress response in your body, even if the stressor itself remains. This helps you feel better immediately and prevents stress from getting stuck, which can cause inflammation and disease.

2. Engage in Physical Activity

Use physical activity of any kind, even simple actions like tensing every muscle hard for 10+ seconds and then relaxing, as the most efficient way to complete the stress response cycle. This physical shift acts as a cue to your body that it is now a safe place.

3. Prioritize Adequate Sleep

Determine and prioritize your individual sleep needs (typically 7-9 hours), understanding that personal requirements vary. If you are a natural napper and it doesn’t disrupt your night sleep, napping can be a highly productive activity for your well-being.

4. Use Imagination for Stress Relief

Leverage your imagination to complete stress cycles, as your brain doesn’t distinguish between vivid imagination and reality. This can involve visualizing yourself overcoming stressors, or engaging with stories (books, movies, video games) that have a built-in stress response cycle.

5. Practice Creative Self-Expression

Engage in creative activities like writing, painting, cooking, or making music to channel difficult feelings outside of yourself. This prevents emotions from getting stuck in your body and helps complete the stress cycle without harming yourself or others.

6. Allow Yourself to Cry

Permit yourself to cry as a natural way to complete a stress response cycle. When crying, focus on non-judgmental observation of the physical sensations rather than ruminating on the cause, allowing the cycle to end naturally.

7. Seek Uncontrollable Laughter

Engage in genuine, uncontrollable belly laughter to achieve catharsis and signal safety to your body, thereby completing the stress cycle. If real laughter is elusive, reminisce about past belly laughs, especially with someone you shared it with, or listen to recordings of others laughing.

8. Practice Deep Breathing & Mindfulness

Utilize deep breathing, focusing on exhalation, to engage the parasympathetic nervous system and signal calm. Combine this with mindfulness (being aware without judging) to observe sensory experiences, breath, or movement, reminding your body it is safe and capable of reaching the end of a stress cycle.

9. Initiate Connection & Community

Be brave and initiate connection with others, even if it feels awkward, as it’s a universal human need. Move together in time with other people for a shared purpose (e.g., dancing, singing, marching, praying) to create a positive chemical shift and foster community.

10. Cultivate a ‘Bubble of Love’

Create a ‘bubble of love’ – a pocket of reciprocal connection with people who genuinely care for your well-being and accept you as you are, free from external expectations. Actively participate in caring for these individuals, as mutual support prevents burnout and fulfills a natural human need.

11. Recognize Systemic Unfairness

Understand that if life feels too hard, it’s often because the ‘game is rigged’ by systems of oppression, not due to personal failing. This knowledge can provide relief and help you re-evaluate your accomplishments in context, as you were not given all the rules to win.

12. Do ‘A Thing’ to Regain Agency

To counteract learned helplessness, ‘do a thing’ – complete any task, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, that is ’not nothing.’ This physical act demonstrates agency to your nervous system, proving you are not helpless and can access safety.

13. Practice Self-Compassion

When realizing you’ve caused harm or fallen short of expectations, turn toward that cruel inner voice with kindness and compassion. This creates space for learning, making amends, and growth, rather than self-flagellation.

14. Ask for Honest Feedback

To understand if you are inadvertently treating others with entitlement (e.g., due to ‘human giver syndrome’), ask people directly and repeatedly, contextualizing your questions as a genuine desire to improve. Initial responses from ‘givers’ may not be fully honest.

15. Embrace Wellness as Action

View wellness not as a static state of being, but as an active process of moving through natural bodily cycles, including rest and effort, and oscillating between connection and autonomy. This freedom of movement is essential for well-being.

16. Follow the NAP Ministry

Follow the NAP ministry and Bishop Trisha Hersey for insights that can change your life, particularly regarding rest and self-care.