I thought Stress Meant Hard Work. I was wrong.

For a long time, I believed that being stressed was just a part of working hard and doing something meaningful. If I overwhelmed, exhausted and constantly switched "on", I told myself it meant I was working hard. That I was ambitious and on the right path.

I was wrong.

In my mid 20s, I became what most people would call a successful personal trainer. My diary was full, I was training over 30 hours per week with clients, with my workload sometimes hitting as high as 60hrs when you combine all the other business activities.

My days would start at 6am and often didn't finish until 9pm, sometimes 5-6 days per week!

It was actually brutal looking back, to be honest.

I thought I was "maximising" my life.

Seeing young 18 year olds making it in life with millions spurred me to work even harder. I told myself if they could do it, then I should be working harder.

Slowly my life started to fall apart.

My personal life took a back seat, I stopped training as hard and often started skipping sessions. Diet went downhill, shopping at Tesco almost daily saying "If it fits your macros, it's fine"...

It wasn't fine.

I was supposed to be a figure of health, yet I was struggling with the EXACT problems my busiest clients were struggling with, and I felt like a FRAUD.

Then in 2016 my Nan passed away, and in that moment it forced me to see something I had been ignoring for years.

I had become emotionally numb.

I had given so much to my work that there was almost nothing left, my cup was empty. So when she died, the grief didn't just hurt - it truly exposed this dark hole inside me.

That was when I knew something had to change.

Within months, I had quit personal training and my gym manager role. I booked a flight to Bali & Australia to "find myself", as some like to say. Lol.

But what I really found wasn't some grand purpose.

I found my nervous system.

The Real Problem Wasn’t Work. It Was My Nervous System.

For years, I lived in a state of constant stress response.

Not stress as in “I have a busy week.”
Stress as in my body never switched off.

This is what happens when your sympathetic nervous system stays dominant.

Your sympathetic system is your fight-or-flight mode. It’s designed for short bursts of danger or urgency. It raises your heart rate, increases cortisol, sharpens focus, and pushes energy toward survival.

That’s useful when you need it.

But it was never designed to be your default.

When you live there for months or years, it doesn’t just affect your mood. It changes how you sleep, digest, recover, think, and even how emotionally available you are. You become wired but tired. Driven but disconnected.

That was me.

And it was the same pattern I was seeing in my busiest clients.

Highly capable people. Ambitious. Disciplined. But constantly overstimulated. Always pushing. Never restoring.

We weren’t “lazy", we were stuck in fight-or-flight.

What Changed Everything: Learning to Activate the Parasympathetic System

The parasympathetic nervous system is the opposite side of the coin.

It is your rest-and-digest system.
The state where recovery happens. Hormones rebalance. Inflammation lowers. Digestion improves. The mind becomes clearer. Emotional regulation returns.

This is the state your body needs in order to actually adapt, heal, and grow.

Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.

I realised that my problem wasn’t that I wasn’t working hard enough.

It was that I never gave my body a reason to feel safe.

So I began rebuilding from the inside out.

Not by doing less, but by learning how to switch states.

The Practical Shift: How to Move From Stress to Regulation

This is the part most people skip.

If you want to perform at a high level without burning out, you must train your nervous system the same way you train your body.

Here’s what that looks like in real life.

Mindset & Mental Regulation

These practices shift you out of constant threat and back intro safety and clarity.

1. Gratitude
   Actively focusing on what is already working in your life reduces the brain’s threat scanning. It tells your nervous system that you are safe enough to soften.

2. Journalling
   Externalising thoughts stops mental looping. It moves stress out of your head and onto paper, creating psychological distance and clarity.

3. Slow Breathing
   Long exhalations (for example: 4 seconds in, 6–8 seconds out) directly activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This is one of the fastest ways to down-regulate stress.

4. Intentional Stillness
   Even five minutes of quiet, without stimulation, teaches your body that it does not need to stay in survival mode.

Physical Regulation

Your body learns safety through movement & nourishment.

1. Breathwork
   Nasal breathing, extended exhales, and slow diaphragmatic breathing signal the nervous system that the environment is non-threatening.

2. Daily Activity
   Walking, light movement, and circulation without intensity tell your system that you are not under attack.

3. Strength Training
   Done with structure, not punishment, it builds resilience without overstimulation. Strength becomes regulation, not stress.

4. Mobility & Stretching
   Slow, controlled movement reduces muscular tension and gives the nervous system permission to release.

5. Nutrition
   Regular, nourishing meals stabilise blood sugar and cortisol. Under-eating, rushing meals, or relying on stimulants keeps the body in stress mode.

Why This Matters More That Just Working Hard

I still want the same things I did back then, I want to build something meaningful, I want the career, the relationships, the body, the life.

But I now understand something I didn’t before:

You do not build a powerful life by living in survival mode.

You build it from a regulated, grounded nervous system.

Because without you, there is NO career, NO relationships & NO progress.

Only eventual burnout.

I share this because I know how many people feel exactly like I did. Ambitious. Capable. Tired. Disconnected. Pushing harder while quietly breaking down.

If that’s you, the answer is not more pressure. It is learning how to come back into your body.

Start with what tells your nervous system that you are safe:

How you breathe.
How you move.
How you think.
How you recover.
How you nourish yourself.

Start with you.

When your nervous system is regulated, everything else has the space to follow.

Nick Finch