Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

by Emily Nagoski

Eight hours of sleep opportunity, give or take an hour. • Twenty to thirty minutes of “stress-reducing conversation” with your partner or other trusted loved one. • Thirty minutes of physical activity. Whether with people or alone, you do it with the explicit mindset of gear-switching, Feels-purging, rest-getting freedom. Physical activity counts as “rest” partly because it improves the quality of your sleep and partly because it completes the stress response cycle, transitioning your body out of a stressed state and into a resting state. • Thirty minutes of paying attention to food. “Thirty minutes?” you say. Don’t fret. That includes all meals, shopping, cooking, and eating, and it doesn’t have to be all at once. It can be with people or alone, but it can’t be while working or driving or watching TV or even listening to a podcast. Pay attention to your food for half an hour a day. This counts as rest partly because it provides necessary nourishment and partly because it’s active rest, a change of pace, apart from the other domains of your life. Think of it as meditation. • And a thirty-minute wild card, depending on your needs. For some people, this will be extra physical activity, because they need that much to feel good. For others, it will be preparation for their sleep opportunity, because they know their brains need time to transition from the buzzing state of wakefulness into the quiet that allows the brain to sleep. For still others, it will be social play time, b...