Skip to main content

Hit the Damn Reset Button. Your Brain is Begging You To

Let’s get real for a minute we are not robots. We are not meant to grind for eight plus hours a day, five days a week, fueled by caffeine and denial, pretending Teams notifications aren’t slowly eating our souls. Yet here we are burnt out, over-meetinged, and holding it together with the classic “Sorry, I was on mute.” 

Newsflash: it is not fine. Think of it like restarting your Wi-Fi when the connection sucks. You don’t just keep hitting refresh you unplug it, wait ten seconds, and let it reboot. Your brain needs the same damn courtesy. 

You are not broken you are just overdue for a mental reset. And what the hell is a mental reset, anyway? It’s not a vacation (though those help). It’s not quitting your job in a blaze of glory (tempting, I know). A mental reset is a pause.. short or long…that gives your brain room to breathe, stretch, and stop spiraling into existential dread every time someone says, “Quick question…” 

Let’s blame hustle culture for making breaks feel like failure. Somewhere along the line, busy became a badge of honor if you weren’t booked solid from dawn till dusk, were you even trying? Yes you were and you are allowed to stop. Stepping back doesn’t mean stepping down. It means you are smart enough to know that constant output without input leads to garbage results. (You know that report you stayed up late finishing? Yeah, it was hot trash. Sorry.) 

Need to know the signs that you are long overdue for a mental resets?

✔ You’ve reread the same email six times and still don’t know what it says.

✔ You’re irrationally pissed off by someone’s use of Comic Sans.

✔ You fantasize about throwing your laptop out the window more than once a day.

✔ You open a new tab and instantly forget why.

✔ You’ve started answering emails in your dreams. (Seriously, call someone.) 

How to actually reset… It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture it just has to be intentional . A reset can be:
A 10-minute walk with no phone. A weekend without touching your inbox. A midweek afternoon where you say, Screw it, and read something for fun. Some people meditate. Some bake bread. Some scream into the void (valid). Do what works, but DO IT. Regularly. 

I created an intentional structured mental reset called SNAP—Shimmy, Notice, Anchor, Pivot. SNAP is your emergency eject button when burnout looms:

Shimmy-Shake off tension with movement, even if it’s just standing up and stretching.
Notice-Pause and check in with your thoughts. What is actually going on in your mind?
Anchor-Find stability in your breath, a grounding phrase, or a physical reset.
Pivot-Shift gears, reframe, or change your environment.

SNAP Worksheet

Stop glorifying the grind, burnout is not a flex. Fatigue is not a trophy. If your brain is waving a white flag, it is time to stop and listen. Normalize taking a beat. Normalize saying not today. Normalize hitting the damn reset button before you crash and burn. Because when you give your mind the rest it needs, it repays you in clarity, creativity, and actual joy.

Imagine that.

ღ Chi



Comments

  1. Ryan C.May 27, 2025 at 12:19 PM

    I love this and 100% agree with this! I've added 5 minute breaks to my work calendar to just stop, put a dance song on and boogie or "shimmy". It's helped me clear my mind and relax after having candidates and hiring managers pushing all of my buttons. I do this at home and with my pups after a rough day. Instantly makes me feel at least 25% better. Like you said, you have to hit the damn reset button!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unmuted-The Culture Made me do it.May 30, 2025 at 11:34 AM

    Yesss! I love that you have built in your own reset ritual, shimmy breaks with pups sounds like peak self care. Thank you for sharing this!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Expectation Bomb

I want to talk about the expectation bomb. Do you know it? Clearly stated, uncommunicated expectations are pre planned resentments. (say it again for the people in the back)  And if you are clutching your pearls at that, you are probably the one who needed to hear it. We have all been there, seething quietly because someone should have known what we needed, expected, or assumed was obvious. But guess what? They did not know. People are not mind readers. They are just trying to survive their own calendar full of back to back Teams meetings, a hundred unread emails, and Susan from comp asking just one quick thing. Here is the truth, expecting people to magically meet standards you never actually told them about is a recipe for disaster. And it is not just annoying; it is toxic. It is workplace sabotage disguised as professionalism. Want that report done your way? Say so. Hoping for help on a project? Ask for it. Need your boss to actually give you real feedback instead of vague thumb...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fuel The Flame

Forget the org chart. Toss the employee handbook. There is a raw, unscripted kind of magic at work no one tells you about. It is not necessarily your boss or your direct report it is your ride or die. This is the one who speaks your chaos fluently, deciphers your frantic shorthand like it is poetry, and fires back a "YUP. Saw that too" Teams message before you exhale.  They are the voice defending you in rooms you will never enter.  They are not just supportive they are catalytic. Throw you two in a room and you can’t be tamed. You bring the fuel they bring the detonator. Kaboom. This is not about climbing ladders it is about lighting up the hallway as you walk it.    Whether they are on your team or in another department, they are the one who sees your vision, challenges your ideas into something sharper, and tells you do it when you float something wild. They do not slow you down  they set you on fire (in the best way). You will know your ride or die when your...
Post a Comment
Read more