Burnout has always been about more than your job. It is the cumulative weight of everything your nervous system is asked to carry. And right now, just being an American who is paying attention is its own full-time unpaid job with zero benefits and maximum anxiety!
It feels imperative that I begin this month’s BURNOUT PREVENTION recap by acknowledging something that has nothing to do with work and everything to do with why so many of us are struggling to feel okay right now. The United States may be on the brink of war. And for the past few days, after I do my morning routine, I open my phone and there is a new thing to absorb that would have been considered unthinkable two years ago. Burnout prevention this month has been challenged by not just work, but by the world.
I believe self-care, in whatever way works for you, is not a “trend.” It is both a privilege and a survival strategy. This month I feel degrees lighter, despite it all, and I attribute many of these practices to exactly why.
So here’s what I did in February to stay sane. May this list find you in whatever way you need it.
I Committed to an Eight-Minute Morning Check-In
Every morning, I sat down for 8 to 10 minutes and checked in with four parts of myself: my body, my intellect, my emotional self, and my spiritual self. I didn’t force it to be profound, I just asked each part what it needed that day. It’s called a QUAD check, a simple mind, body, spirit meditation that can radically improve your day.
It’s is subtle and quick, but if I skip it, I will feel slightly off and irritable (ask my husband, he can confirm). This practice keeps my whole self, in healthy, even, conversation. It keeps me from defaulting into output as a coping mechanism.
Its magic.
COST: Free
I Had a Consultation Call with a Grief Doula — Callie Chamberlain
If you read my Burnout Prevention Recap from January 2026, you know I was in debilitating grief over my dog Lou’s terminal illness. Lou is still here. Miraculously, she is doing better. We get more time with her on this earth than we thought, and I am so deeply grateful for every single day.
Despite Lou’s improvement, I am still navigating grief. My sister recommended I work with a grief doula and pointed me to Callie Chamberlain. Callie and I had a consult call in February and I loved her energy and spirit. What struck me most while learning about Callie’s work is that she doesn’t just work with end-of-life grief. She works with founders and their grief! I know that phrase might sound niche, but it isn't. If you've ever closed a business, been pushed out, quit, or had to walk away from something you poured yourself into, that loss is real and it is heavy! There's no funeral, nobody brings you flowers, and people expect you to move on quickly because the thing you lost wasn't a person. And yet it can absolutely wreck you. Callie works with that kind of loss too.
I genuinely wish I had known about her when I closed my agency last year. We haven’t started working together yet, but the initial consult was exactly what I needed and I look forward to beginning.
COST: Initial Consult: Free // Followed by $150 per session
Contact: calliekchamberlain@gmail.com
I Co-Hosted a Clothing Sale with My Friend Melanie Masarin
My closet is a graveyard of good intentions and it was time to let many piece go. Two weeks ago my long time friend and fashion-savant Melanie Masarin asked me if I wanted to join her closet sale (she knew I had so much shit) and I said yes and so glad I did. It was so fun and incredibly rewarding to see pieces I once loved, or bought hoping to one day love, find a new home.
What felt good was the decisiveness! There’s something psychologically clarifying about deciding what stays and what goes without turning it into a months-long internal debate. When so much feels out of my control right now, being ruthlessly decisive about my own closet felt like power. Small, domestic power, but power nonetheless.
Cost: $15! Our friend Krissy let us use her space at Sky Ting. The only real cost was hangers, labels, and the time it took to organize it.
4. I Rediscovered a Meditation I Used to Listen to All the Time
I went back to Justin Michael Williams' Intention Setting meditation this month and genuinely cannot tell you why I ever stopped. I am a firm believer in intention setting. I often come back to the Deepak Chopra mantra from The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success (I know, I know, he's in the Epstein files, that's a conversation for another article):
“Attention energizes, intention transforms.” I swear by it. And yet it is so easy to forget to actually do it.
Justin guides you through an intention-setting practice with one simple premise: stop, and honestly evaluate whether how you're living is aligned with what you want. Right now, having something pull you back and remind you to do this is so important.
Set those intentions baby!
COST: Free
I Started Taking WonderCalm Gummies by Plant People
This month, I decided to try the WonderCalm gummies by Plant People. Not because I needed another supplement, but because I was curious and willing to experiment. Who knows if it’s a placebo. I genuinely do not care! I’m telling myself they work, they’re clean and free of crap, and at this point, no harm, no foul.
When that low hum of overwhelm starts rising, I take one and move on with my life.
COST: $26
6. I Recommitted to Pilates in a Way That Actually Works for Me
This month I finally stopped putting pressure on myself to get to a workout class in person (which if you live in New York, you know is its own specific form of travel anxiety.)
For February, I pretty much exclusively did at-home Pilates and it's been great! No commute, no scrambling, just me my weights and my mat. Melissa Wood Health and Sculpt Society are my two go-tos, and they couldn't be more different. These two platforms are nothing new but they WORK. Sculpt Society is harder, more dance-focused and will genuinely kick your ass, while MWH is slower, more intentional and deeply good for your nervous system.
Between the two I have everything I need. It clears mental noise and moves my body through what my brain simply cannot process on its own, and right now that matters more than ever.
COST: $40/month
I Replaced My Second or Third Coffee With Something More Intentional
Yes, I drink a lot of coffee. I love it! THE TASTE, THE SMELL,THE FEELS. But I am also aware that caffeine overstimulation is one of burnout's best friends, hence the change in routine.
This month I ordered the ESSPO variety pack and started swapping out my later afternoon coffees for it. Its genuinely helped me feel calmer. ESSPO is a new sparkling espresso drink, founded by Philippe von Borries, one of the co-founders of Refinery29. Think espresso tonic that sips like a soda and hits like a cold brew. Each can is 120mg of caffeine, clean ingredients, sweetened with blue agave and monk fruit, three flavors: Cherry Vanilla, Classic Vanilla, Sweet Lemon.
Most importantly, it’s actually delicious!
COST: $43.99
I Continued Switching My Skincare Over to Clean, Small Brands
In this economy, I want my money going to smaller brands who are actually making something worth buying. Honestly, with everything else there is to worry about right now, the last thing I need is to also be slathering chemicals and junk on my face!
LINNÉ's Repair Face Oil was a very intentional purchase of the month. There's something genuinely relieving about simplifying what you put on your body and feeling good about where your dollars are going, especially right now when so much else feels completely out of your control.
The product feels and smells amazing. I must add, everyone keeps saying my skin is glowing! Worth it all the way.
COST: $84
I Saw My Friends And Finally Went to Bistrot Ha
February was about seeing my people and getting out of my own head. Human connection is one of the most underrated burnout prevention tools we have, and isolation, however cozy it can feel, will quietly burn you out.
This month, my friend Shay and I went to Bistrot Ha on the Lower East Side. I am happy to report that it was so damn good. It’s the sister restaurant to Ha’s Snack Bar, and the menu is flavor forward in a way that feels completely unexpected and completely intentional. Nothing about it feels safe or predictable.
We did not show restraint. Two glasses of wine each. Ordered handsomely. Every dish layered and alive. We left feeling delighted in a way that no amount of alone time on my couch could have produced. There is something that happens when you sit across from a friend you love in a room full of energy and conversation. Your nervous system just remembers what it is regulating for.
COST: $100+ per person.
Preventing burnout is not one sweeping boundary or one radical decision. It is a series of small, conscious steps taken daily, then weekly, then monthly, often so subtle you barely notice them working.
None of this list looks extraordinary on its own. But layered over time, it changes the tone of your life.
THANK YOU FEBRUARY! MARCH HERE WE GO <3
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