For most of my life, the advice I heard when things got heavy was some version of maybe you just need to slow down. I do not know how that lands for you, but for me it was one of the most infuriating things anyone could say. I did not want to slow down. It is not in my DNA. I wanted to keep going, doing the things, feeling good about them, and moving on to the next.

That streak of hyper-independence also made it very hard to ask for help. So what I did instead was take care of everyone around me and everything on my list, and let my own health slide quietly off the bottom of it.

The cycle, and where it took me

At first I just picked my socks up and kept going. That turned into a self-perpetuating loop, because doing more created more stress, more stress created more symptoms, and more symptoms made me hunker down and do more. If you have ever been inside that loop, you know how hard it is to get out of, particularly if asking for help does not come naturally to you.

For me it ended with hospitalisation for appendicitis, surgery, and a genuinely difficult recovery, made harder by the fact that I kept trying to keep going. It was my second surgery in eighteen months, and it forced me to admit that something had to change.

What changed was not my ambition. I did not put my goals aside and I did not become a different person. What I did was start putting support into my days in the form of the foundations: how I was moving, how I was nourishing myself, where the moments were to let the steam off, whether sleep was actually a priority, and whether I was having any fun or connecting with anyone. I love what I do. I just did not want to feel as weighed down by it as I did, or to keep collecting the health consequences.

You do not have to slam on the brakes

If your instinct is that regulating your nervous system means stopping, I want to loosen that. Slamming your foot on the brake tends to leave you restless and unsure what to do with yourself, which is not calm, it is just a different kind of agitation.

What I find works far better is using the transitions that already exist in your day. If you have driven somewhere, pause for two minutes before you get out of the car, close your eyes, and take some deep breaths. When you get home, put your legs up the wall for five minutes, or do it before bed. Wake ten minutes earlier so you get quiet before the rest of the house does.

I think of this as letting the steam off the pot rather than clamping the lid down harder and continuing through the day. I have written more about that pattern in Busy as Baseline, which looks at why you can feel fine and still be running hot.

Mindfulness without sitting in silence

If you have concluded that stress management means meditation and that you are bad at meditation, I want to hand that back to you.

Meditation is one form of mindfulness. It is not the only one, and for many of us there is energy that needs somewhere to go before stillness is even possible. Mindfulness can be a brisk walk with nothing in your ears. It can be lying in bed doing box breathing. It can be a gentle movement practice that gives you what you need rather than demanding you sit motionless and quiet.

Let go of the idea that there is one correct way to practise this. There is a way that works for your nervous system, and finding it is the actual task.

Building capacity rather than pulling back

Here is the reframe I want to leave you with. Instead of thinking about what to take away, think about what would build capacity.

What could come off your plate? What could you ask someone else to carry, in order to make room for the things that give you more capacity rather than less? Pause for a second right now and ask yourself: when I do X, I know I feel better. What is X for you, and where could a few moments of it fit into your day?

Most of us are walking around in a sympathetic, fight or flight state most of the time. The goal is not a fifty-fifty split between go and rest. The goal is being able to move smoothly between the two rather than being stuck at one end. You find that in the transitions, the extra breaths, the small moments, and when you do, you slow down enough to bring your prefrontal cortex back online and make decisions from steadiness instead of stress.

That is how capacity gets built. Through intention, awareness, and small consistent actions that add up to something significant over time.

The part about asking for help

One of the defining behaviours of hyper-independent, high-achieving women, and I say that with total confidence as one of them, is trying to work it out entirely alone, on top of everything else you are already doing. It becomes enormously cumbersome, and it is usually the thing keeping the loop turning.

Bringing in the right support means someone helping you tailor and individualise your effort so you get the most from the energy you are already spending. That might be a health coach who works with nervous system regulation, another healthcare provider, or sometimes just a friend who knows how to listen. I have written more about this in You Don't Have to Do This Alone.

If you want to start with your own pattern, my free Stress Blueprint quiz takes about three minutes and shows you how your nervous system specifically responds under pressure.

And if you have recognised yourself in the loop I described at the top, that is exactly the work I do one to one. You can book a connection call, and it is a conversation rather than a commitment.