Guide · calm · 3 min read
Using your body to come down after something stressful — a straightforward guide, if you are fitting this around other people
After a stress response, the body is left with fuel it did not use. Some of the recovery is physical, not mental.
Start here
This is not complicated. It is inconvenient, which is why most people skip it.
It is designed to fit around other people’s schedules.
If you only do one thing from this page, do the first point below. It is first because it removes the most friction for the least effort.
What helps
Move first, think later. A brisk ten-minute walk uses up some of what the stress response prepared your body to do.
Do not go straight into problem-solving while your heart is still going. Your judgement is genuinely worse in the first twenty minutes.
Tell someone what happened, briefly. Saying it out loud closes the loop in a way that thinking it does not.
What to do when it does not work
Shake out your hands and shoulders. Animals do this after a fright, and it works on the same system in people.
Eat something if it has been a long time. Low blood sugar feels almost exactly like anxiety.
Give yourself a fixed amount of time to be angry or upset about it. Then move to the next thing. The time limit matters more than the amount.
Questions people ask
What if I cannot exercise?
Then slow breathing with a long exhale, cold water on the wrists, and a change of room do a smaller version of the same job.
Does venting help?
Once, to one person, yes. Repeatedly to everyone, no — it tends to keep the feeling active rather than discharge it.
Written for people who want the practical version. No accounts, no tracking, no newsletter wall.
If this is not the angle you need, try The five minutes after a difficult meeting — a gentle, practical guide, when you are not sure this will work, A wind-down that starts before you are tired, when you want to finish something or When the inner voice will not let something go, when you need something unremarkable.