Five Steps to Reset
Doctor's orders for managing stress
Hello, and happy Monday!
Today, I’m writing from my studio in Provence, where I’m preparing to run a group coaching session on managing stress. It dawned on me that five years ago this month, I was just beginning to notice symptoms of what would later become full-blown burnout requiring a lengthy medical leave from work.
I regularly worked eighty hours a week, holding two executive-level roles in an FTSE 100 company going through its umpteenth reorg. These were coveted roles, working closely with executives at the London headquarters, ideal roles learning opportunities for someone like me who wanted to keep growing my corporate career.
However, the stress often kept me awake at night; I routinely skipped meals and exercising. I looked at my phone before I went to bed to respond to emails and again first thing in the morning. And I traveled a lot, so I often juggled time zones and jetlag.
By September 2019, I was genuinely feeling awful—chronic headaches, neck and back aches, exhaustion, and a lack of inspiration, to name a few symptoms, but I mostly kept how I was feeling to myself!
Before the pandemic, topics like ‘self-care’ and ‘burnout’ weren’t discussed as much as they are today. So, I never questioned any of it. I was and wanted to be counted on as someone who could handle it all like I’d been taught to do at school and throughout my career. Failure was never an option. I was really wrong!
Fast-forward five years, and wow, the picture looks quite different!
We’re all better informed about stress and the importance of tending to our wellbeing. And I now live an exceptional life in Provence as a very healthy high achiever—a life I always dreamed of but couldn’t entirely create—and I’m incredibly grateful for the lessons I’ve learned.
But, as much as we now understand that we need to keep our wellbeing in check, seven out of ten people today are suffering from chronic stress and burnout—that’s most of us!
As luck would have it, an incredible book about this topic, The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain and Body for Less Stress and More Resilience, by Aditi Nerukar, MD, came out a few months ago.
In it, Dr. Aditi, a Harvard-trained stress doctor, teaches you how to “pump the brakes and slow down your runaway, counterproductive stress and reset your brain and body so that stress can serve you, not hurt you.”
This book is so good; let’s just say it’s hard to put down. It is incredibly helpful in unpacking the stress that’s holding you back and sharing a five-step process to help you reset and move forward with the life you want. And if that’s not aligned with Live Your Opus, my method and mindset for healthy high achievement, I don’t know what is!
The 5 Resets Dr. Aditi shares are:
Get Clear on What Matters Most: This is about “cultivating the right mindset to rewire your brain and body” by focusing on what matters most to you, not in an existential way but in a practical way that activates your prefrontal cortex and rationale side.
Find Quiet in a Noisy World: This is about protecting “your bandwidth by minimizing external influences” practically daily, including small steps like limiting your time on screens and practicing good sleep hygiene.
Sync Your Brain and Your Body: This is all about optimizing the mind-body connection, focusing on simple techniques to “help your brain and body serve you better during periods of high stress.”
Come Up For Air: This is about learning to use the five resets easily and effectively amidst everything that’s going on in your life.
Bring Your Best Self Forward: This is about learning “powerful new language for your brain and body to redefine your relationship to stress.”
Much of my recovery from burnout was spent learning about stress, how to better manage healthy stress, and how to reduce unhealthy stress. I developed strategies to come back to center, as I say, or reset, and get back on track to what matters most regardless of what life is throwing at me.
Dr. Aditi’s approach even includes a link to a “stress score” that you can use to gauge your stress levels and how they improve as you bring the 5 Resets into practice.
Since adding another book to your reading list might add more stress, I highly recommend you grab your sneakers, take a walk, and listen to her interview with Mel Robbins HERE.
I know from experience that you do have what it takes to manage your stress. Little changes can go a long way to creating more space for joy and meaning in your life.
Give yourself a gift: check out Dr. Aditi’s work today. And let me know if you’d like support as you reduce your stress and take a healthy approach to achieving your goals.
Thanks for being here as you Live Your Opus. And, as always, if you’re reading my letters and getting value from them, please subscribe and share them with others who may benefit.
Until next time, be well!
