3 Ways To Reclaim Your Sense Of Peace When You're Stressed & Everything's A Mess

You know something's not right.

By Brent Roy — Written on Apr 27, 2022

Photo: Syda Productions / Shutterstock

Smiling woman dressed in red hiking through green woods.

I used to be like the circus juggler, I was quite good at keeping all the balls rotating in the air … until they all landed on my head. I was out of balance.

To be even more precise, I was burned out. I just didn't realize it at the time.

For certain personalities who like to be active all the time, it’s easy not to notice areas where a lack of balance could be an issue. That was me, and I needed to find ways to reclaim lost balance.

Why do you lose balance in life when you're burned out?

A Lack of Equilibrium

It’s crazy to think that a washing machine will practically walk across the basement floor to let you know the load isn’t right.

When a wheel is out of balance on your car, you’ll get a vibration noise from the offending tire. Some of the machines we create are better equipped to detect a lack of equilibrium than we are.

We pass off exhaustion as just a normal part of getting older. And who doesn’t get cranky and cynical once in a while? We all have days where we question our abilities, even if we’ve excelled at our skills for years.

When these things are happening all at once and seem to be coming on quickly, it’s a problem. For driven humans, we may only see the signs in retrospect.

It’s better to make course corrections at the first sign something is off, but you can only act on what you perceive.

Once this insight bounced onto my bean, I made many changes in my life to prevent ever going back to that crushing feeling of "overwhelm" I’d experienced. Three were paramount in helping me to crawl, then walk through 2018 and beyond.

Inserting these non-negotiables into my life paved the way for a fresh feeling of vigor that persists to this day.

Here are 3 simple ways to reclaim your lost balance when you're burned out.

1. Get a good night’s sleep.

Until recently, I could accurately recount the date and location of the best sleep I ever had. It was in Maine, the second night after our wedding 28 years ago.

I’ve had some good sleep since then but that deep feeling of refreshment from rest had become more and more evasive.

I’ve been guilty of getting caught up in the busyness of life and work and sacrificing sleep in the process.

Don’t we look more important and dedicated to our jobs by letting our colleagues know we worked on a project on our laptops until 11 pm and only slept 6 hours last night? Nope. Busy is the new stupid.

Quality sleep is required for the cognitive function we need to do our best. Constant exhaustion is not normal.

My doctor referred me to a sleep clinic where I discovered I have a mild form of sleep apnea. Mild, but enough to cause me to awaken 11 times per hour throughout the night.

I now have a machine with a mask I wear at night that allows me to breathe normally. (It makes me look so attractive that sometimes I wear it while out doing errands.)

The machine tracks the hours I sleep and I now average 8 and a half hours a night. That’s 90 minutes more per night than before — the equivalent of sleeping an additional workday a week.

So, check with your doctor to see if there is an underlying medical issue preventing you from experiencing consistent restful sleep.

2. Express gratitude to others.

Because complaining can be one of our default responses, being grateful takes some effort. On December 27, 2017, I began keeping a gratitude journal. It’s really made a positive difference for me.

I downloaded a neat little app from my phone called "Five Minute Journal." It allows you to add a photo every day and prompts you with, "I am grateful for…" and space to type the three things you’re grateful for as you wake up.

Then, there are three things to write under the heading, "What will I do to make today great?", followed by a daily affirmation before finishing up the day with "3 amazing things that happened today."

At the end of the year, you’ll have 1,095 things you were grateful for, 1,095 amazing things that you did and 365 daily affirmations. Expressing gratitude helps you to appreciate what you’ve received in life.

When you express gratitude to others perhaps by writing a note or verbally telling people how much they mean to you, it not only blesses them, it also gives you a feeling of happiness and a sense that you’ve given something back to those who have helped you.

3. Do some moderate exercise.

This one should be obvious but it doesn’t take as much effort as you might think. Acting like an athlete preparing for the next summer Olympics can actually be detrimental, especially if you’re experiencing some burnout.

The fumes I had left in my tank were not revived by intense workouts in the gym. In fact, they made me feel worse and may have accelerated the detrimental process.