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A few weekends ago, I spent a Saturday sauna-ing and cold plunging with a friend. We were sitting in the heat, sweat everywhere, when she started talking about the way people approach the sauna.
She described watching people set a timer and rotate every few minutes so they'd cook evenly, like hot dogs on a gas station roller grill.
I laughed. Because I used to tan like that. Baby oil, a towel, a timer, flip every fifteen minutes so I wouldn't come back with one white side. I did that a lot.
And then I got quiet.
Because I realized I still do a version of it. I track my HRV. I journal, which I genuinely love, but some mornings I do it like homework. My coach and I picked a 4-6 breathing practice because I wanted the fastest way to calm down.
The fastest.
Like calming down is something I need to get over with so I can get back to my inbox.
When nervous system regulation starts feeling like homework
I'm glad we're talking about nervous system regulation more. I love that people are paying attention to how stress shows up in their bodies. I also love a good wearable, a sauna, and a self-care routine that actually holds up under a stress test.
But I can take something useful and turn it into a report card surprisingly quickly.
Did I do the breathing long enough? Did the number on my wearable move? Did I journal this morning? If I missed a day, am I behind?
I could finish an entire routine and still feel like I'd done it wrong because the data didn't look the way I wanted. And then I'd have one more thing to be stressed about. Excellent system, Ellyn.
Maybe you've felt that too. You start a practice because you want to feel better, and somewhere along the way the practice itself starts demanding your attention. You're watching the timer instead of noticing whether you're comfortable. You're checking a score before you've checked in with yourself.
The tool can still be useful. I don't want to throw out my wearable or pretend data doesn't tell me anything. I do want to notice when I'm so focused on getting the right number that I stop paying attention to the person wearing it.
Self-care can't do all the work your calendar won't
There's another version of this that initially felt easy to criticize.
You know the corporate wellness routine: bring in the burnout coach, teach everyone box breathing, hand out a meditation app subscription. Meanwhile, the meeting load stays the same. The urgency stays the same. Nobody has any room to say no.
I was ready to roll my eyes at that. But then I thought, okay, wait. Founders do this to ourselves too.
We're the company and the employee. We book the retreat, buy the wearable, sign up for the breathwork course, and come back to the exact same calendar.
A founder I spoke with recently was weighing another program. She stopped herself because she already knew what she needed to do. The harder part was finding room in an actual day to keep it moving without dropping something else. She told me that managing her workload had felt easier when she had a manager. Now she had to be her own.
I recognized that immediately. I can always find another practice to add. Taking something off my calendar is harder, especially when I care about it or someone is counting on me.
And I don't think the answer is that we should stop learning or getting support. Sometimes a course or a coach is exactly what helps. But if I'm already struggling to fit everything into a day, I have to ask where that new commitment is going to live.
What could I stop doing? What needs more time than I've given it? What am I calling urgent because I haven't made a decision about it yet?
Those questions are less appealing than buying a new tool. They're also much harder to avoid forever.
Regulation vs. suppression: what happens after you calm down?
This is the part where I get a little stuck, because breathing before a difficult meeting can genuinely help. I want to be able to calm down enough to do something I care about. We all have moments when we need support getting through the next thing.
But I also know how easy it is to decide, before I've even started, that I'm going straight back to work afterward. Anything I notice during that break has to fit around the decision I've already made.
If I'm exhausted, would I actually let myself change the plan? Would I move something? Ask for help? Or would I keep trying practices until I felt capable of pushing through?
I don't think a breathing exercise can answer that question for me. It might give me enough space to hear the answer. What I do with it is another matter.
And to be clear, this isn't a rule that says every tired feeling requires canceling your day. Sometimes you can't move the meeting. Sometimes a walk is simply a walk. I think the question is whether responding to what you notice is even an option you're willing to consider.
I love the sauna. I want to keep going. I also want to be able to notice that I've had enough and get out, even if there's time left on the timer.
Try this with one thing you already enjoy
The next time you do a practice you already like, a walk, journaling, a few minutes outside, a sauna, notice how you feel while you're doing it.
You don't need to make it a whole project. Ask yourself:
What am I noticing right now? You might feel settled, restless, tired, distracted, or unsure. You don't have to come up with the correct answer.
Do I want to keep going, stop, or do something differently? Let your answer matter, even if it's different from the plan you started with.
Is there one small adjustment I can make? Maybe you take a shorter walk. Maybe you leave a little space before your next meeting. Maybe you decide the practice is enough for today.
You can write about it if that helps. I probably will, because I like journaling. But I'd also like to be able to take a walk and leave it at that.
Please don't turn this into another spreadsheet with a color-coded compliance score. We have enough going on.
Give yourself room to respond
I've been thinking about the pace I expect myself to maintain, and I don't fully know where all of it came from yet. I've got theories. I want to give myself some time to think about them.
What I do know is that I can get very specific about the breathing practice while avoiding the question of whether I've asked too much of myself this week. One of those things feels a lot easier to measure. The other might require a conversation, a change of plans, or admitting that I can't fit everything in.
I want to keep the practices that help me. I want a business that leaves room for them, too. And I want to be able to listen to my body and let what I hear change my plans.
Want to go deeper? Listen to the Burnout-Proof Podcast episode on nervous system regulation and the pressure to turn self-care into another job (above) or watch this YouTube video…
