Welcome to Your First Step Towards Reclaiming Calm, Balance, and Vitality.

In this guide, you’ll get a taste of the transformative practices in The Calm Code – an on-demand somatic healing course, designed to help high performers like you recover from burnout and thrive without sacrificing your well-being. In these pages, you’ll learn about your nervous system, discover simple yet effective techniques to regulate stress, and take a challenge to start recharging today.

Understanding Burnout & Your Nervous System

Burnout isn’t just about exhaustion. It’s your body’s response to prolonged stress. When your nervous system is pushed into overdrive, it eventually crashes. Here’s a quick overview of how your body responds to stress:

1. Sympathetic Activation (Fight or Flight)
   This is your body’s survival mode. When you’re in overdrive, your heart races, your breath shortens, and your mind goes into high alert. The pressure is on, and you feel like you can’t stop. It’s designed for short bursts when faced with danger. 
2. Dorsal Vagal Shutdown (Freeze)
   This state is a protective shutdown. You feel numb, disconnected, and exhausted. It’s the body’s way of coping when it’s been running too hard, for too long.
3. Ventral Vagal Regulation (Rest & Digest)
   This is your natural state of calm. When you’re in this mode, you feel grounded, present, and at ease. Your body is relaxed and content, your thoughts are clear and creative – you can perform at your highest level.

Take a Burnout Awareness Quiz

Do you often experience these?

1. I wake up feeling anxious or on edge.

Yes / No

2. I often feel numb or disconnected from myself

Yes / No

3. I crash hard after pushing through long periods of effort

Yes / No

4. I have trouble relaxing, even when I’m not working

Yes / No

5. I feel responsible for everyone’s needs but my own

Yes / No

6. I feel like I can’t stop or slow down

Yes / No

For every ‘Yes’ answer, add 1 point.

Total Score:

• 1 Temporary dysregulation
• 2-3 You’re burnout. You should do something immediately
• 4-6 Your health & performance have been compromised

---

Regulation Techniques to Begin Your Healing

Now that you know your body’s stress responses, let’s work on getting you back to a balanced state. In the Calm Code course, we teach you tools to regulate in the moment and build resilience. Here are two practices you can use immediately:

1. Box Breathing:
   Box breathing is one of the simplest and most powerful tools for calming your nervous system.
   
   • Sit or lie down in a comfortable position.
     
   • Breathe in deeply for a count of 4, allowing your belly to expand.
     
   • Hold your breath for 4 counts.
     
   • Exhale slowly for a count of 6, releasing all the tension.
     
   • Hold your breath again for 4 counts
     
   • Repeat for 3-5 minutes.

This anchors your nervous system back into a calm state.

2. The Anchor Practice:
   The Anchor practice helps your body to quickly feel safe, and calm.
   
   • Stand or sit comfortably. Close your eyes if it feels right.
     
   • Imagine a place (real or imagined) where you feel safe and happy, touch a physical part of your body (e.g. self-hug, touching a hand/arm, or one hand on heart, other on belly) that makes you feel supported, loved or comforted – this is different for everyone; find experiment to find what’s your “anchor”.
     
   • Breathe deeply while touching your body part in that visualized safe place.
     
   • Take a few moments to center yourself before moving on.

This is a quick reset when emotions feel overwhelming. 

Your Challenge:
Practice one of these techniques when you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed. Notice how it helps you feel more connected and calm.

---

Rewriting Survival Patterns for Lasting Change

Burnout recovery is more than just moment-to-moment regulation—it’s about shifting your underlying survival patterns (the repeated behaviors you developed in stressful situations, often from early life). If you’ve been using perfectionism, people-pleasing, or overachievement as coping mechanisms, it’s time to rewrite those habits.

In The Calm Code, you’ll learn to:

• Recognize your personal survival patterns and where they come from.
  
• Rewire your nervous system to respond to stress with calm and resilience.
  
• Build new, sustainable routines that support your nervous system and prevent burnout for good.
  

Your Reflection:
Reflect on one survival pattern you tend to fall into (e.g., overworking, perfectionism, saying “yes” when you mean “no”).  

---

The Calm Code Course: What’s Next?

This mini-guide is just a taste. The Calm Code offers a step-by-step system to help you reset your nervous system. It isn’t about mindset hacks or toxic positivity. It’s a trauma-informed, body-based method to help you:

• Get out of survival mode
• Feel safe slowing down
• Restore energy without guilt or dropping everything
• Reconnect to calm from the inside out

---