How to recognise you are living in survival mode

There is a difference between a hard week and a life that structurally runs on reserves. That difference is hard to see, precisely because you are inside it. You have lost your point of comparison.

Why it starts to feel normal

Stress researcher Bruce McEwen called this allostatic load: the price your body pays for constantly adapting. Your stress system is not built to stay switched on, but to move — effort, then recovery. If recovery never comes, the system shifts its baseline. What once felt like too much becomes the new normal. You stop noticing the load, because you have forgotten how it felt without it.

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Take two five-minute micro-breaks — 10 minutes

Recovery works through frequency, not size. The holiday you are waiting for is too far away to help you now.

HOW TO DO IT
Breathe in for four counts, out for six. Three times. Do it at a red light, before you get out of the car, or between two tasks. You do not need to sit down for it.

STEP 1

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STEP 2

HOW TO DO IT
Pick one from this list and do it twice today.

• A walk round the block. Outside counts more than inside.

• Make a tea or coffee and drink it standing by the window, without your phone.

• Look outside and rest your eyes on something in the distance.

• Take a call standing or walking if it does not need a screen.

If you only do one thing

Set those two alarms. It is the only one of the four that does not depend on you remembering that day — and that is exactly the problem you are trying to solve.

Sources: McEwen, B. S. (1998). Stress, adaptation, and disease. Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences, 840, 33–44. · Albulescu, P. et al. (2022). Give me a break! PLOS ONE, 17(8). · Gollwitzer, P. M. & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119.

Breathe out three times longer than in — 30 seconds

A longer out-breath than in-breath helps your body come out of alarm mode.

Four things you can do today

STEP 3

STEP 4

Set a timer for your break, not your work — 10 seconds

The break is the first thing you skip, because it is not written into anything.

Make one if-then agreement — 1 minute

“I am going to take better care of myself” collapses the moment things get busy. An if-then agreement ties it to a concrete moment, so you no longer have to decide.

HOW TO DO IT
Set two alarms on your phone now, say 11am and 3pm, labelled “five minutes”. When it goes off, you get up. Even if it is inconvenient. Especially then.

HOW TO DO IT
Finish this sentence once and say it out loud. “If it is ___, then I ___.” For example: if the children are in bed, then I put my phone away for ten minutes.

When you need more than an article

What is written here is psychosocial guidance, not therapy. If you recognise prolonged low mood, ongoing sleep problems, panic symptoms or the feeling that you are really not coping — contact your GP. They can look with you at whether you need care that goes beyond guidance.

Shall we look at it together?

In a free fifteen-minute Self-Love Discovery Call we look together at what is going on for you and what a realistic first step would be. No sales pitch, no obligation.

Prefer to go straight to a 75-minute session? See the Self-Love Session.

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