Letting go meditation for burnout (7 min), in the office

About this practice

Slow, spoken guidance for burnout. A letting go session you can do in the office. A guided session of about 7 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: burnout

Burnout is not tiredness you can sleep off. It is a flat, depleted state after prolonged effort, where the usual rewards stop registering.

It tends to show up as:

• Flatness rather than sadness
• Cynicism about work you used to care about
• Rest that does not restore anything

Recovery is not a push. Gentle practices that ask nothing of you are more useful here than anything with a target.

Doing this at your desk

• Feet flat, back supported, screen away from your eyeline
• You can do this with your eyes open if the office makes closing them awkward
• Unclench the jaw and drop the shoulders first, before anything else

Nobody needs to know you are doing it. Keep it invisible if that makes it possible.

How letting go works

Letting go is about loosening grip rather than dropping things. It works on the effort attached to a problem — the holding, rehearsing and bracing — which is separable from the problem itself.

• Pick one thing you are gripping and loosen a single finger
• Release the effort with the exhale, not the issue
• Set down temporarily; you can pick it up again after

What happens, minute by minute

1. 0:00Put both feet flat on the floor and let them take some of the weight.
2. 0:14With each exhale, let a little of the effort go. Not the problem — just the effort.
3. 0:29Bring your attention to the parts of you that are already still.
4. 0:42We'll start broad and narrow down. Nothing sudden is coming.
5. 0:54Feel the air move past your upper lip. It's the coolest spot on the way in.
6. 1:09Let the out-breath be a little longer than the in-breath, without forcing it.
7. 1:22Feel your face. It's probably softer than it was five minutes ago.
8. 1:35Feel the skin around your eyes. Let the muscles behind them go loose.
9. 1:48Move to your forehead. Let it be smooth instead of gathered.
10. 2:00Whatever the flatness after pushing too long is doing right now, your breathing can keep going underneath it.
11. 2:16You do not have to like the worn-down feeling that coffee cannot fix to breathe through it. Liking was never the requirement.
12. 2:34Let your whole body be as heavy as it wants to be.
13. 2:47Let the pause stretch out.
14. 2:56Feel the last part of the exhale, where it turns into nothing.
15. 3:09Notice your ribs on both sides. Wide, not squeezed.
16. 3:20If you're irritated, that's allowed. Irritation is just weather.
17. 3:31I'll stop for a moment. Take the pause at your own speed.
18. 3:44Ask yourself what you could stop holding for the next sixty seconds. That one is a good start.
19. 4:00Notice anything you're holding onto from earlier today.
20. 4:11Let the breath be shallow if shallow is what your body wants.
21. 4:24Quiet now. The next part will wait for you.
22. 4:35There is no correct amount of the distance between you and the work you used to love to be feeling right now. Whatever is here is the honest amount.
23. 4:56If the flatness after pushing too long starts telling you a story, let the story finish without you adding to it.
24. 5:13Breathe in through your nose and out through your nose, if that's comfortable.
25. 5:26Notice whether you're breathing or holding. Start breathing again.
26. 5:37If you're sleepy, sit up a little. Or let the sleepiness be there.
27. 5:50A few seconds of nothing now. That's on purpose.
28. 6:01We are not solving anything in the next few minutes. We are setting it down, temporarily.
29. 6:16Notice the quiet you made, and let it close gently.
30. 6:28Let your eyes open when they're ready, not when the words end.

Questions people ask

Meditation is a practice, not a treatment. If you are dealing with ongoing distress, please also reach out to a professional.