DIY Mini Retreat:Restore at Home When you Don’t Have Time or Energy for a Demanding Reset.

Why is it that sometimes even after rest. your body can still feel wired, flat, foggy, or easily overwhelmed?

That’s because the nervous system doesn’t always reset just because you stop.

Your body may be saying it still doesn’t feel adequately safe to reset. When stress signals persist, the biochemical profile of stress lingers. Meaning our neurotransmitters and hormones that signal sleep, mood, motivation, satiety, digestion, reproduction and healing are all over the place. In other words,you didn’t really heal from rest because the system was still bracing.

Often what your body needs isn’t a complicated program it’s signals of safety.

Below is a gentle, at-home reset you could do in a single day (or spread across a weekend). Nothing extreme. Just practices that tell your body to soften

1. Touch

Kinesiology modules recognise something modern neuroscience continues to confirm: safe, nurturing touch is foundational to infant development. From birth, touch helps organise the nervous system, regulate stress responses, and support healthy brain wiring. Babies who receive consistent, attuned physical contact show more stable heart rates, better emotional regulation, and stronger attachment patterns. Touch is one of the earliest ways a child learns the world is safe and that their needs will be met. Developmentally, it shapes not only sensory integration but also future capacity for connection, resilience, and self-soothing.

A beautiful reminder of this comes from anthropologist Ashley Montagu, who wrote in Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin:

“Human beings cannot survive without touch. It is as essential as food.”

Your nervous system is wired to calm down through contact. Safe touch releases oxytocin, "the love hormone" that counteracts stress chemistry and helps the body shift out of fight-or-flight.

This is why you instinctively rub your arms when you’re overwhelmed, or why cuddling a pet feels regulating.

Try:

• Self-massage with oil or a luxurious body lotion

• Take a slow shower savouring the water on your skin

• A long hug (20 seconds)

• Intimacy

• Exchange massage with your partner

• Sitting under a weighted blanket

• Petting an animal slowly

• At home massage chair or vibrating massage ball. 

• Hugging a pillow

• Treat yourself to a remedial massage.

Takeaway: Touch is essential for our emotional safety signals.

2. Vagal Toning (Humming, Singing, Gargling) 

The nerve that helps your body relax runs through your throat and vocal cords. Gentle vibration here is like pressing the “relax” button.

Ever notice how singing lifts your mood? That’s no coincidence it’s vagal tone in action.

Try:

• Hum a low sound for 1–2 minutes

• Sing along to a song you love

• Gargle water for 30 seconds

Takeaway: Your voice is a nervous system tool.

3. Legs Up the Wall

This pose tells your body to stand down. Blood returns toward the heart, muscles release, and the body reads this as rest (it also supports the lymphatic system.)

It’s why people instinctively lie down and put their feet up when they feel upset or overwhelmed.

How: Lie on your back, legs elevated, bottom toward the wall or headboard and put your legs up the wall, 5–10 minutes. Close your eyes or place a hand on your belly.

4. Enjoy A “No Stimulation” Window

Sometimes your brain simply hasn’t had a break. Even if you had time off, being bombarded by constant input (kids demands, scrolling, podcasts, news, noise) keeps your system alert.

Silence lets the sensory processing system breathe. Your brain is constantly sorting, filtering, and prioritising incoming information. Light, sound, movement, screens, notifications, conversation, even background noise all require processing. When that input never pauses, the nervous system stays in a state of subtle vigilance. Over time this leads to what researchers call “sensory overload” or “attentional fatigue.” People describe it as feeling wired, scattered, irritable, or foggy.

Too much stimulation keeps the stress response silently active. The brain has to stay alert to manage the flow of information, which means more sympathetic (fight/flight) nervous system activity. Heart rate stays slightly elevated. Muscles hold tension. Cortisol remains higher than ideal. This is one reason people can feel exhausted and overstimulated at the same time.

In low stimulation environments, the brain shifts away from constant filtering/processing and toward restoration. 

The benefits are huge. Studies on attention restoration and time in low-input environments show improvements in mood, focus, and perceived stress. When sensory demand drops, breathing often slows naturally, muscles release, and the body shifts toward parasympathetic activity, that is the branch of the nervous system associated with repair, digestion, and emotional regulation.

Even short windows of reduced input can help the body calm down.

Try: 30–60 minutes with no screens, music, or information. Just tea, light, and stillness.

Takeaway: Overstimulation sabotages relaxation. .

5. Journaling to Empty the Mind

Your brain sometimes holds unresolved tensions like open browser tabs. Writing can help close them, leaving you free from stress and able to channel your attention more appropriately.

Try: Set a timer for 7 minutes and write on anything heavy on your mind, uncensored. You’re not striving for insight, but simply journaling for expression and discharge. It’s ok if it’s messy. Let it breathe.

6. Gentle Rhythmic Movement

Your body loves rhythm. Slow walking, swaying, tapping or rocking tells your system things are safe enough to soften. This is why we instinctively pace to calm anxiety, or sway to soothe fussy babies.

A simple practice that can be surprisingly powerful is bilateral tapping. Bilateral means both sides. This technique uses gentle, alternating left and right tapping on the body to help the nervous system settle.

When we are stressed or overwhelmed, the body can get stuck in fight, flight, or freeze. Bilateral rhythmic movement gives the brain a steady pattern to follow.

Consistent rhythm signals safety. The nervous system relaxes when experience feels predictable and contained.

Alternating left and right stimulation also helps the brain integrate emotional and sensory information rather than leaving it stuck in stress loops. This is one reason bilateral stimulation is used in trauma-informed therapies like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing Therapy.)

 Many people find that while tapping, their breathing deepens, muscle tension eases, and emotions feel more manageable.

Try:

• A walk on sand barefoot without headphones. Feel your steps.

• Do Yin yoga, led or by yourself

• Wrao your arms around yourself and sway as you breathe slowly.

• Do Bilateral Tapping: Cross your arms and place your hands on opposite shoulders, or rest your hands on your opposite thighs. Gently tap left, right, left, right in a slow, steady rhythm for about a minute. Keep the pressure soft and your breath natural. If it feels too fast or activating, slow down. The goal is soothing, not stimulating.

7. Safe Human Contact

You don’t have to process anything. Just let your nervous system borrow calm from someone steady.

Try: A short call or time with someone relaxed who feels grounding.

8. Guided Breathwork

Slow nasal breathing lowers heart rate and shifts your body out of stress mode.

Try: 5–10 minutes low slow breathing or use my guided nervous system reset audio. Sign up to get it here. You'll also receive articles like this one.

9. Epsom Salt Bath

Warm water + magnesium relaxes muscles, supports the stress response and signals the body to unwind.

How:

•  Have a warm bath with 1–2 cups salts, 20 minutes, low light.

• If you don’t have a tub, even a foot bath can be supportive. (I just use a large saucepan...don’t judge me!) 

Optional: Lavender, Chamomile, Vetiver or Bergamot essential oils are amazing inclusions, shown to lower stress, cortisol and heart rate.

10. Nature Time

Green spaces reduce stress hormones and mental fatigue. Even 20 minutes helps.

Try: Walk slowly or sit quietly in nature. Notice light, air, sounds.

Tip: Moving water from waterfalls, waves and rain also offers negative ionisation (purifies, boosts mood) deepening effectiveness.

Every one of these practices all send the message to your body:

✔ You are safe 

✔ You can soften 

✔ You don’t have to be on guard

That’s the foundation of real recovery.

Choose 3–5. Make a day of it. No productivity allowed!

Start here gently, but, if you realise your system needs more consistent support Kinesiology is here to help!

Book NOW

PS Intake for my Six week Reset: Nourish is now open if it's time to get real hands on. Enquire if this is right for you here.

Yours in Health and Happiness

E xx

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