Book review: The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain and Body for Less Stress and More Resilience by Dr. Aditi Nerurkar

The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain and Body for Less Stress and More Resilience by Aditi Nerurkar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Review is also available on my site: https://roxannacross.com/2025/07/02/b...

This self-development audiobook, also available in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle on Amazon or at your local library, is narrated by the author herself, which makes it more intimate since she knows what she wants listeners to get out of the experience. Dr. Nerurkar drew on anecdotes from herself and her patients to provide enough details to describe what our stress is telling us, and that “Stress is a normal part of the human experience.”

She explains the five resets to rewire the brain:

Get clear on what matters most.
Find quiet in a noisy world.
Sync your brain and your body.
Come up for air
Bring your best self forward.

Dr. Nerurkar blends anecdotes, personal examples from her life, and those of her patients, along with questions to reflect on and tangible advice, connecting her readers and listeners to her, her patients, and their stories rather than a passing blip. She expresses the importance of embracing the idea that change can help you become wiser, stronger, and more adaptable, which is the essence of the growth mindset.

The world around us is so busy with all the social media frenzy, news at our fingertips, advertisements, television, movies, and on and on. The buzz is never-ending, thus the need to find the quiet in a noisy world. Dr. Nerurkar uses an example of a patient and how his addiction to news and social media has taken over his life. She asked him to apply the theory of two, which means making two changes in his routine for thirty days, such as turning off all notifications from his phone and setting aside four increments of twenty minutes of phone time spaced out throughout his day to check his new reels.

“STOP. BREATHE. BE.”

Dr. Nerurkar recommends this technique to many of her patients, as it allows them to pause in the moment of overwhelming stress or anxiety, breathe using methods such as the 4-4-4 or 4-7-8, and calm the storm within, enabling them to be centered and ready to move forward, body and brain in sync once more.

Dr. Nerurkar reminds her patients that the road to recovery from burnout is a slow and intentional process and that they should give themselves time, patience, and self-compassion to reach their goals. Looping back to previous patients, keeping readers and listeners engaged, she revisits the example of her patient with the news addiction and how he’s now implementing two additional changes to his routine to reach his ultimate goal. She asked him to stop charging his phone on his bedside table to avoid the middle-of-the-night urges to check his phone and to integrate twenty minutes of screen-free movement therapy, such as walking. These rituals, which we perform repeatedly in a specific order, serve as helpful catalysts to prime our brains, allowing us to create some mental space when we have little to no physical space.

For the last reset, Dr. Nerurkar addresses how our stressed brain is hyper-vigilant to the external environment, and even a seemingly insignificant mistake can trigger a cascade of negative emotions. In this state of hyper-vigilance and heightened sensitivity, adverse experiences are hallmarks of any maladaptive stress response. Therefore, by teaching our brain the language of gratitude, we’re protecting it from some of the harmful effects of stress. Again, she reminds her patients that “Stress is a normal part of the human experience.”

The main takeaways from Dr. Nerurkar’s advice are the canary warnings. She draws a parallel between canaries in the mines that warned miners of trouble when they stopped singing and how we all have our own internal canary songs warning of trouble. However, it may be a problem for us to respond to it, but we shouldn’t stop listening to our canary song. And when we realize we’ve made progress, celebrate every single win, both big and small.

The balance of examples, research, thought-provoking questions, and advice, along with the candid delivery of it, makes this a 4-star read or listen.



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