Guide · calm · 3 min read
Using your body to come down after something stressful, without the usual advice, when you are too tired to try hard
After a stress response, the body is left with fuel it did not use. Some of the recovery is physical, not mental.
Start here
None of this is glamorous. All of it is doable, which matters more.
Too tired to try hard is exactly the right amount of tired for this.
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
Tell someone what happened, briefly. Saying it out loud closes the loop in a way that thinking it does not.
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.
Do not go straight into problem-solving while your heart is still going. Your judgement is genuinely worse in the first twenty minutes.
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.
Move first, think later. A brisk ten-minute walk uses up some of what the stress response prepared your body to do.
A note on effort
Nothing abstract for the next few minutes.
Questions people ask
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 How to get through the first hour without your phone — a realistic guide, when nothing else has worked today, What to do when you wake at 3am — what nobody tells you, when you only have a few minutes or What to do when you wake at 3am — the long answer, briefly, when you cannot concentrate on anything else.