A guide to what you might be carrying
Common conditions
Most people arrive here with a name already in their head — anxiety, burnout, insomnia. These guides explain what each condition actually is, how the nervous system keeps it going, and which practices on this site have the best evidence for it.
A threat system stuck in the on position.
Anxiety
What it is
Everyone feels anxious before a hard conversation or an uncertain outcome. Anxiety becomes a problem when the alarm keeps ringing long after the threat has passed — persistent worry, a racing heart, tight chest, trouble concentrating, irritability, or a constant sense that something bad is about to happen. Roughly one in twenty people worldwide lives with an anxiety disorder in any given year, making it the most common mental-health condition on earth.
What is happening in the nervous system
Anxiety lives in the body's threat-detection circuitry. The amygdala — the brain's smoke detector — becomes over-responsive, while the prefrontal cortex, which normally provides context and reassurance, has less influence. The sympathetic branch stays activated: muscles tense, breathing becomes shallow and fast, digestion slows. Crucially, the loop runs both ways — a body that is braced all day keeps confirming to the brain that danger is present. This is why body-first practices (lengthening the exhale, releasing muscle tension, cold exposure) measurably reduce anxious symptoms and not just the thoughts.
Practices with the best evidence
Slow breathing practices, mindfulness-based programmes and regular aerobic exercise all have meta-analytic support for reducing anxiety symptoms. Clinical guidelines (such as NICE in the UK) recommend cognitive behavioural therapy as the first-line treatment for anxiety disorders — self-help practices work alongside, not instead of, that care.
When to seek more help
If anxiety restricts your daily life — you avoid work, people or places, or the worry feels uncontrollable most days — a GP or psychologist can help. Anxiety disorders respond very well to treatment.
Not sadness — a shutdown of drive, energy and hope.
Depression
What it is
Depression is more than a low mood. It flattens pleasure, drains energy, disturbs sleep and appetite, slows thinking, and can bring a persistent sense of worthlessness. It affects around 5% of adults globally and is a leading cause of disability. It exists on a spectrum, from a persistent low-grade heaviness (dysthymia) to major depressive episodes that make ordinary life feel impossible.
What is happening in the nervous system
Depression looks, physiologically, like a conservation state. Where anxiety revs the system up, depression often turns it down: low heart-rate variability, blunted reward signalling in the brain's dopamine circuitry, elevated inflammation markers, and disrupted circadian rhythms. The behavioural consequence is withdrawal — less movement, less light, less contact, less meaning — which deepens the shutdown. This is why the practices with the strongest evidence here are activating ones: movement, morning light, rhythm and human contact, rather than rest.
Practices with the best evidence
- Movement, Gym & Sport
- Sunlight & Circadian Rhythm
- Nature
- Boundaries & Pacing
- Sleep
- Journaling & Narrative Work
Exercise performs comparably to medication for mild-to-moderate depression in meta-analyses, morning light helps even without seasonal pattern, and strong social connection is among the most consistent protective factors. For moderate or severe depression, guidelines recommend psychotherapy and/or medication — lifestyle practices support that treatment.
When to seek more help
If low mood, loss of interest or hopeless thoughts last more than two weeks, talk to a doctor. Depression is treatable, and you do not have to think your way out of it alone. If you have thoughts of harming yourself, get urgent help now. In crisis? Get urgent help →
Chronic demands without recovery — usually at work, often from care.
Burnout
What it is
Burnout is the end state of prolonged stress without adequate recovery: emotional exhaustion, cynicism or detachment from the work, and a collapsing sense of effectiveness. The WHO classifies it as an occupational phenomenon rather than a disease. It is common in caregiving, healthcare, teaching and high-pressure knowledge work — anywhere effort is demanded faster than it can be restored.
What is happening in the nervous system
Burnout is what happens when the stress response runs for months without the parasympathetic system ever getting a real turn. Cortisol patterns flatten, sleep becomes unrefreshing, and the capacity to downshift — to genuinely rest — erodes. People in burnout often try to recover with more discipline and more effort, which accelerates the collapse. Recovery is built from the opposite inputs: enforced boundaries, genuine downtime, restored sleep, and activities that have nothing to do with performance.
Practices with the best evidence
Interventions that combine organisational change (workload, autonomy) with personal recovery practices outperform either alone. Yoga nidra and other non-sleep deep rest practices show promise for restoring depleted alertness, and nature exposure reliably restores directed attention.
When to seek more help
Burnout frequently overlaps with depression, and it can be hard to tell which is which from the inside. A professional assessment is worthwhile — and if your workplace is the source, changes there matter more than any practice on this site.
When the past keeps happening in the present body.
PTSD & complex trauma
What it is
Post-traumatic stress disorder develops after experiences that overwhelmed the system's capacity to process them — accidents, violence, loss, war, abuse. Flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, emotional numbness and avoidance are the classic signs. Complex PTSD arises from prolonged, repeated trauma (often relational, often in childhood) and adds deep difficulties with self-worth, trust and emotional regulation. Neither is weakness; both are the nervous system doing its job too well, for too long.
What is happening in the nervous system
In PTSD the threat system never files the memory away as finished. Triggers — a sound, a smell, a posture — re-activate the full alarm response as if the event were now, while the rational brain watches from the sidelines. The system oscillates between hyperarousal (panic, rage, startle) and hypoarousal (numbness, collapse, dissociation). Recovery work has two directions: top-down (trauma-focused therapies that reprocess the memory) and bottom-up (body-based practices that restore the felt sense of safety). The two work best together.
Practices with the best evidence
- Trauma Therapies
- Somatic Practice
- Shaking & Tremor Release
- Yoga Nidra
- Meditation
- Journaling & Narrative Work
Trauma-focused psychotherapies (EMDR, prolonged exposure, trauma-focused CBT) are the guideline-recommended core treatment. Body-based practices — yoga, somatic work, TRE-style tremoring — have growing trial support for reducing post-traumatic symptoms and are a useful complement, particularly for the hyperarousal that talking therapy alone may not settle.
When to seek more help
PTSD rarely resolves fully on its own, and it responds well to proper treatment — please seek a trauma-informed therapist. If body-based practices bring up overwhelming distress, stop and work with a professional rather than pushing through.
A brain that has forgotten how to put itself down.
Insomnia
What it is
Insomnia is difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking far too early — at least three nights a week, long enough to damage the day. It affects roughly a third of adults at any level, and about one in ten severely. It often begins with a stressor and then persists on its own: the bed becomes associated with wakefulness and worry, and the harder you try to sleep, the more sleep resists.
What is happening in the nervous system
Sleep requires the parasympathetic system to take the wheel: heart rate falls, core temperature drops, cortisol must be off-duty. An insomniac's nervous system arrives in bed braced — hyperaroused, ruminating, monitoring its own sleep. Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) works precisely because it retrains this association and rebuilds sleep pressure, and it outperforms sleeping pills in the long term. Most of its components — light timing, wind-down rituals, stimulation control, worry scheduling — are practices you can begin here.
Practices with the best evidence
CBT-I is the first-line treatment recommended by clinical guidelines worldwide. Morning bright light, consistent wake times, reduced evening screen exposure and non-sleep deep rest all have solid supporting evidence for sleep quality.
When to seek more help
If insomnia has lasted more than a month and is affecting your days, ask for CBT-I — it is effective and worth insisting on before sleeping pills. Persistent insomnia can also accompany depression, anxiety or sleep apnoea, which a doctor can check.
A full fire alarm with no fire — terrifying, but survivable.
Panic attacks
What it is
A panic attack is a sudden surge of intense fear with strong body symptoms — pounding heart, breathlessness, dizziness, tingling, a sense of unreality or impending doom — peaking within minutes. It affects up to a third of people at least once. Panic disorder develops when the fear of the next attack begins to shape your life: avoiding exercise, travel or crowded places for fear of triggering one. The attacks are not dangerous; the avoidance is what grows.
What is happening in the nervous system
Panic is a false-positive firing of the entire fight-or-flight cascade at once. Its fuel is misinterpretation: the body registers a normal sensation (a skipped beat, a slightly tight chest), the brain reads it as catastrophe, and the resulting adrenaline produces more sensations — a loop that escalates. The counter-intuitive but well-evidenced approach is the opposite of fighting: letting the wave crest while keeping the exhale long and the feet on the floor. Each ride-through without escaping teaches the alarm system that the sensation is survivable.
Practices with the best evidence
Breathing retraining and interoceptive exposure are core components of CBT for panic, which has strong trial evidence. Cold water on the face triggers the mammalian dive reflex and reliably slows a racing heart — a legitimate physiological brake, not folklore.
When to seek more help
First, get a medical check-up once to confirm the symptoms are panic and not a heart or thyroid issue — this single fact makes riding the wave far easier. If attacks are frequent or you have started avoiding places, CBT for panic is highly effective.
The quiet condition underneath the others.
Chronic stress
What it is
Chronic stress is the background condition of modern life: months or years of unrelenting demands — work, money, caregiving, news, noise — without real recovery. It rarely gets diagnosed because it feels normal. Its signature is familiar: tension, shallow sleep, short fuse, brain fog, frequent minor illness, dependence on caffeine and screens to keep going, and the sense of never quite catching up. Left running, it paves the way for anxiety, depression, burnout and physical disease.
What is happening in the nervous system
Stress is not the enemy — the acute response is how the system mobilises. The problem is load without discharge. Cortisol stays elevated, heart-rate variability falls, inflammation rises, and the brain's threat detector grows more sensitive while memory and focus suffer. Recovery is a skill, not a luxury: the nervous system needs daily signals that it is safe — long exhales, movement, daylight, nature, laughter, contact — and the evidence is clearest that small, repeated signals beat occasional heroic retreats.
Practices with the best evidence
Almost every practice on this site was selected for its evidence against chronic stress: slow breathing and heart-rate-variability training, nature exposure, exercise, sleep regularity and social connection all have large bodies of supporting research. If you do only one thing, make it a daily rhythm rather than a weekly rescue.
When to seek more help
Chronic stress is also the moment to look at causes: workload, relationships, finances, health. A practice routine helps you cope; it does not remove a load that needs removing. A doctor can also check for thyroid issues, anaemia and other conditions that mimic stress.
If you are in crisis or having thoughts of harming yourself, this site can wait — get urgent help now.