New Year, new.....everything?!

So many people start off January: “new year, new me!” “This is my year!” They make a lot of resolutions that they may or may not keep. In reality, January 1st is simply the day after December 31st. Unless we create small habits and we’re consistent and intentional, the resolutions are just words on a piece of paper or typed out.

My resolutions started back in September, after months of battling with 2025. It was an overwhelming first half of the year, but as much as I knew I was not feeling myself, I wouldn’t have said I was “stressed out”, because I was doing so many things that I enjoyed and that felt fulfilling!

It was only after a joke comment (“you always busy, you need a sabbatical!”) that it hit me like a ton of bricks: that is EXACTLY what I needed. I vowed to take September to December away from my clinical practice to focus firstly on resetting my nervous system and sorting out the physical and emotional things that told me I was burnt out, and then I had a list of work-related tasks I wanted to tackle but needed time to do.

Sigh. Sabbatical WHERE?!!!! I DID try to step away from clinical practice, and I’m extremely grateful to my small caseload of families for their grace towards me when I explained my situation. However, I took on a couple of clients (literally only two) because it was the best option at the time that I see them. In addition, I ended up still being way busier than intended.

Nevertheless, my sabbatical was extremely helpful for me because somewhere around October (September and early October I still felt extremely overwhelmed), I realised that not only was I no longer waking up with a flood of anxiety in my waking moments, I was feeling HAPPY again, and more relaxed.

I was learning how to plan my schedule so that it works for ME, and not because I think that as a working adult I should be able to handle it. I was forced to confront the fact that while I still believe I CAN do it all, I CANNOT do it all at once! That was my true pitfall: when I made a mental list of all of the things I had going on at one time, it was a staggering list and I could not believe I was doing so much. Additionally, I realised that I had been emotionally running on empty since around August 2023: a full two years of underlying stress, one thing after the next. And yes, some of you may be stressed for longer, but 1) if this is you, that’s not a flex at all, please take some corrective steps; and 2) my neurodivergent brain might deal with stress differently.

So now that it’s 2026, I’m not coming out of a sabbatical to jump into a “new year, new me” vibe where I try to conquer the world again. Instead, I’ve transitioned from calling it a sabbatical to calling it “working from home”. I’m a lot more intentional about everything now, because I’ve been forced to confront how much I’m affected by things that seem “normal” or “daily grind” to others. Here are some things I pay attention to, and some changes I’ve made:

1. My sensory needs. I’m generally more sensory defensive than anything else, so my key is to not get overstimulated. This isn’t always easy, especially when I’m out, but I try to have more options in my “toolkit” in case I get overwhelmed: leaving the place, putting in my ear plugs (my #1 go-to), wearing comfortable clothes, I even bought an inhaler thing in case I’m around bad scents! I keep one in my wallet. I try to have ear plugs on me all the time, and I’m better about not waiting until the situation gets to be too much to use them. I pay more attention to what my body is feeling now.

2. What I eat and how it affects me. My gut health is still not 100%, and I know much of this is because of my stress levels over the past couple of years. Even foods that were safe for me and wouldn’t bug me, I can no longer eat without discomfort. It feels like I’m starting from scratch now with figuring out what I can or cannot eat to feel ok. The list of safe foods right now is very tiny, but by being more mindful about each meal, I am hoping that I can reset my gut and feel better. I’m learning to cook more because I’m trying to eat more REAL and whole foods (a nightmare for a picky eater but I’m getting there!)

3. My emotional regulation needs. A big deciding factor for the sabbatical was that I was getting overwhelmed very very quickly. It was creeping into some PDA-like (pathological demand avoidance) tendencies, all related to anxiety. I am a lot more mindful now of making sure I have earplugs on me and as I mentioned above, managing my sensory needs as best as I can. Another thing to managing anxiety is managing my schedule better. I’ve been diligent about making daily to-do lists, and only aiming for 2-3 main things. Any more and I feel the anxiety creeping in. On days where I have to do more, I try to sandwich them between lighter days. This has been a big help.

While I know I needed to do this for me, there was a lot of guilt involved when explaining to my therapy families, because I know parents of children with additional needs have maybe more stressors than I do. However, what I’d like you to take from this and learn from my mistakes, is pay (more) attention to little things that you need to help you stay less stressed. While your daily life and schedule might be the same, are there small things you can do in your daily life to reduce your mental or emotional load?