What does stress look like for you?
Stress doesn't usually arrive labelled. It shows up as a stiff jaw, a short reply, a week of bad sleep. These questions are just a way of looking at where yours tends to land.
Six questions. Two or three minutes, if you take your time.
These are just questions to think about — not a test, and not a diagnosis. There's no score at the end.
Question 1 of 6You can stop at any point.
When a week gets heavy, where do you notice it first?
What does a hard day do to how you are with people?
And what happens to eating?
Nobody is marking this.
Where is most of it coming from at the moment?
When a stressful stretch ends, what happens next?
If someone asked how you are — right now, meaning it — what would you say?
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Something to sit with
Reading back through what you picked: you seem to notice stress while it's happening, rather than finding out afterwards. That sounds small. It isn't. A lot of people only discover they were under strain once it has already cost them something.
Nothing here suggests you need to do anything differently. If it's useful at all, it's worth remembering which sign shows up first for you — that early signal is worth more than any amount of managing things later on.
A very small thing, for the days that get stuck anyway:
Two minutes, one windowThe smallest thing that reliably changes a stuck afternoon: go and stand at a window.1 min readAnd if you ever want to think something through out loud with a person rather than a page, that's what a session is for. No hurry.
Something to sit with
There's a shape to what you picked, and it's a common one: you keep going, and the cost turns up somewhere else. In sleep. In meals that get skipped. In being short with people who didn't do anything.
That isn't a discipline problem, and it isn't something to be embarrassed about. It's usually what happens when the load has been high for long enough that it has stopped feeling remarkable. The question worth sitting with isn't how to carry it better — it's what's actually going out, and what's stopped coming in.
This one is about that exact difference:
The difference between being tired and being depletedTired goes away with a good night's sleep. Depleted doesn't, and that's the useful clue.6 min readIf you'd like to look at it with someone — properly, not in a hurry — you can book a session whenever it suits you.
Something to sit with
Reading this back gently: several of your answers point the same way. Not noticing until something gives way. Not quite knowing how you'd answer 'how are you'. That combination usually means you've been running on very little for a while, and it has quietly become normal.
That's a lot to be carrying without much noticing it. It doesn't mean anything is wrong with you, and it isn't a verdict on how you're doing. It's just worth saying plainly, because you may not have said it to anyone.
You don't have to do anything with this today.
If you read one thing after this, maybe this one:
You don't have to earn restRest isn't the prize you get for finishing. It's part of how a person works.2 min readAnd when you want to, you can talk to someone about it. There's no right time and no minimum level of bad.
That's fine
You skipped all of them, and that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do — sometimes the questions aren't the right ones, or it isn't the day. Nothing was recorded. You're welcome to come back, or not.
Stopped there
Stopped, and nothing was kept. If a question was more than you wanted to look at right now, that's fine — it will still be here another time.
Nothing you picked was saved, sent anywhere or counted. It stayed in this browser tab and it's already gone.