Unstress

What are you carrying?

Most of us file everything under “stress”, because that is the only word we were handed. But there are several different things that get called that, they often arrive together, and they respond to different things — which is why the usual remedy, slow down and be gentle, helps with some of them and quietly fails on others.

Educational, not diagnostic

This tool is for education and self-reflection only. It does not diagnose stress, burnout, anxiety, depression, illness, or any medical or mental health condition. If you are concerned about your health or wellbeing, consider speaking with a qualified healthcare professional.

Read each one and tick what rings true. This is recognition, not a test: it cannot tell you what you have, and it cannot tell you that you are fine. It can only reflect back what you ticked, and say what each of those things tends to respond to.

Which of these ring true right now?

Too much at once

More demands than fit in the day.

There is more on my plate than there are hours, and it has been that way for a while.
I can name the things — a particular job, person, bill or deadline — and each one is real.
If two or three of them were taken off me, I think I would be alright.
I keep dropping things, not because I forget but because there is no room.

Running on empty

Empty, and rest is not putting it back.

I am tired in a way a weekend does not fix.
Things I used to manage easily now cost more than they are worth.
I have been running on less sleep, less food or less daylight than I need, for longer than I meant to.
Even the things I enjoy feel like effort.

Switched on

The body is running, and will not come down.

My body is on alert — tight, jumpy, heart going — even when nothing is happening right now.
I cannot sit still with it; trying to relax makes it louder.
It comes over me in surges that peak and then pass.
My sleep is light, or I wake already tense.

Going round in circles

The same thought, over and over, arriving nowhere.

I keep going over the same thing, and going over it has not solved it.
It follows me into bed, into the shower, into conversations.
I know the thinking is not helping, and I do it anyway.

A shrinking world

The things I steer around are quietly multiplying.

Worth knowing before you tick anything here: this is the kind of thing that wants a person, not a tool. Going toward what you have been steering around is what works — and doing it alone, all at once, is the version that makes it worse. unstress will not walk you through it, on purpose. What it can do is help you notice, and point you toward someone who can.

There are places, people or tasks I have started steering around.
Each time I get out of one, the relief is real — and the next one is a little harder.
My life is smaller than it was a year ago, and I did not decide that.
I have a reason for each thing I avoid, and I half know the reasons are not the point.

The past arriving uninvited

Something that happened keeps happening.

Worth knowing before you tick anything here: this is the one where a self-help tool is the wrong instrument. Grounding can help in the moment. It does nothing about why the moments keep arriving — that is work for someone trained in exactly this, and it is work that helps.

Something that happened keeps coming back — as pictures, dreams or a jolt in the body — when I did not go looking for it.
Certain places, sounds or smells put me straight back there.
I stay away from reminders of it, and I am more on edge than the situation calls for.

Nothing much matters

Flat, pointless, or out of line with who I meant to be.

Things are not so much painful as flat — nothing pulls me forward.
I am doing what I ought to, and none of it is what I wanted.
Something I saw, did, or failed to do sits wrong with me in a way I cannot shake.
I could name what would matter, and I am not doing any of it.

Your shape, today

Nothing has rung true yet. If something still feels heavy, that does not mean nothing is going on — it may be that none of these words are the right ones. The toolkit meets it from the other side, by what is happening right now, and the support resources are always below.

Open the toolkit

These seven are a way of seeing, not a list of conditions. They come from the research on how distress keeps itself going, put into plain words; nothing on this page can tell you what you have, and nothing here should be read as saying you are alright. If things feel worse than usual, or have for a while, the support resources below are always here.