As I’ve been sharing more content about emotional regulation lately, I’ve been getting a lot more DMs about how to actually go from emotionally exhausted girly to feeling “like yourself” again.
You know, loving life again type of thing 🥹
So this week I want to share 5 habits that have helped me go from stressed, constantly feeling burnt out and feeling no excitement about my life, to someone who’s calmer, more present and who finds beauty in mundane everyday moments.
So without further ado, here are my 5 non-negotiable habits for emotional regulation.
1. Finding a moment of stillness every day.
Not to get too “woo-woo”, or “conspiratorial” on you, but this capitalistic lifestyle that we’re living is not prioritizing our mental health or emotional wellbeing. The opposite is quite true: we live in a society that teaches us to wear stress and burnout like a badge of honour. When I was still in the corporate world, if I wasn’t “stressed enough”, it meant I wasn’t working hard enough (and they would just add to my already overflowing to-do list).
And the thing with that is, if you’re busy and always on the go, you don’t have time to stop and reflect on how you actually feel. And more importantly, is this really the life you want to live?
So that’s why I’ve listed this as my first habit: take time every. single. day. to stop, pause and notice how you actually feel.
And this seemingly small action has soooo many unexpected benefits: allowing your emotions to move; allowing you to connect to your intuition; allowing your nervous system to down-regulate; finding unexpected solutions to your problems and many more.
My go-to’s are either just sitting and looking out of the window, sitting on my bed after waking up, sitting on a bench on my walk etc, you get the point 😁
2. Breathwork
I’ve been doing conscious breathing every morning right after waking up, ever since April 2025, and I can’t imagine my life without it 🥹
Conscious breathing helps us to bypass our thinking mind (that voice in your head that otherwise seems to never shut up), and connect to our bodies. Simply by breathing, we’re able to release emotions living in our body, reduce stress, anxiety, overthinking, and clear all that mental clutter.
But for me, the biggest benefit from breathwork has been the gentle release of trauma from the body (trauma* - strong, deep emotions living in the nervous system that are usually attached to suppressed memories, core beliefs about ourselves and what life is possible for us).
It made me see that I don’t have to spend years in therapy rehashing my childhood, I can breathe, cry and process it all from the safety of my own home.
And you don’t need to do a one-hour breathwork journey for it. My favourite ones are 15-20 minutes, and honestly, they never feel that long.
💌 My favourite channels: Breath with Sandy and Breath with Kelaila.
3. Yoga or stretching
This is not your typical “move your body every day” kind of habit, or “do yoga to be flexible”. Yoga (or just stretching) does so much more to our whole system than any other type of movement ever can.
If you struggle with headaches, sore muscles (especially your hips, lower back, shoulders, neck), these can all be connected to emotional stress and physical tension in the body. And no amount of painkillers will ever make the underlying tension go away.
And prolonged tension can be held in our deeper tissues, our fascia network, and one of the ways we can help release it is through longer, slower holds. So your nervous system can settle back to a rest-and-digest mode, and allow you to access those deeper tissues.
If you’ve ever found yourself feeling like crying or just emotionally lighter after a yoga class, that’s why.
💌 Try this full body yin yoga class.
4. Journaling
You’re probably not too surprised to see it in this list, right? 🤓
I’ve been journaling daily for over 7 years now 🥹, and one thing I love is that, to this day, it still feels like I’m emptying my brain every time my pen touches the paper.
And because I’ve been doing this for so long, by now, I know exactly what my system needs to get the most out of this beautiful practice.
So here are some of my prompts that I have created for myself to reflect on every morning:
- How am I feeling today?
- What’s on my mind?
- How do I want to feel today?
- Manifesting/Scripting (here I write about something I am dreaming of in the present tense, like it’s happening right now. This is my small, but sooo effective everyday manifestation practice.)
5. Feeling my feels
Allowing myself to somatically feel my emotions.
And that one started with me actually learning what it even means when I am emotionally activated.
Because for the longest time, I didn’t even know what I was feeling. I just knew I felt “bad”, and my automatic response was to distract myself, suppress it, push it down or find something that would make me feel better.
And this is where I’ve seen the biggest shift in my own emotional regulation.
And honestly, sometimes it’s uncomfortable as fuck 🤣
But the more I’ve practiced it, the more I’ve realized that emotions are not here to ruin my day. They’re information. They’re my body communicating with me.
And when I actually allow myself to feel them instead of fighting them, they move.
💌 Try this somatic meditation to feel.
And these 5 habits have become my little toolkit for exactly that.
And it didn't start with me doing these perfectly every single day. For me, it stared with journaling, then came yoga, then stillness, then breathwork and now I have all 5.
And it was never my goal to "do them every single day", but to have practices that help me come back to balance, and feel alive again.
So if you’re feeling a little burnt-out exhausted girly lately, pick just ONE of these and start there. 🥹
Your nervous system doesn’t need another thing to achieve. It needs consistency, safety and a little bit of care.
Until next week ❤️
With all my love,
Darja x
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