Can someone make well-being less exhausting?
If one more wellness influencer tells me to tape my mouth shut or that drinking coffee past 3pm will send me to cortisol jail, I might lose it. Like… respectfully, what are we doing? We’ve gone from “self-care” to overthinking every bite, breath, and step. I’m tired of it.
Every week, a new rule
Every week, it’s a new protocol:
Follow these four steps for “hot girl” digestion
Take this injection and 28 supplements to drop weight fast
Try cold exposure every day for brown fat, discipline, or whatever we’re chasing this week
Nervous system regulation for things that used to just be called living
I’m not saying everyone is lying. If TikTok said chewing sea moss on Mount Fuji cured stress, I’d at least check flights. (The PTO alone might help.) But doing everything? Exhausting.
Last Saturday, I was eating lunch when my water app beeped, my watch told me to stand, and my stress tracker said I was stressed. Well yeah, now I am.
Trying to do wellness right
I have all the apps. I track my stress, stand hours, water, sleep, and food. I have the watch, the routines, the intention. And yet… on days I don’t hit my stand goal, I feel like I failed. Especially during a season when work was so consuming that standing once an hour felt out of reach.
One minute coffee’s your best friend, the next it’s the enemy. Some say breakfast is crucial, others say skip it. Everyone’s an expert. And none of them agree. All of that noise and confusion come at a cost.
What this is really costing us
We could talk about the gadgets, subscriptions, and treatments, but that’s not even the most expensive part. Somewhere in all this tracking and optimizing, we stopped going back to the basics of how our bodies work.
The real cost is that we’ve outsourced our understanding of our bodies to people who aren’t 1) qualified and 2) who aren’t us.
Instead of learning what hunger feels like, what rest actually restores, or how stress shows up for us, we look for external validation. And when we lose that connection, joy is usually the first thing to go.
What I’m choosing instead
So by now, you probably know my stance on well-being. I think we’ve made it too complicated, too expensive, too judgmental and 100% too performative.
So I’m keeping it simple here on out: learning about my body, well-being and focusing on what makes me happy.
This is what I’m coming back to:
Long walks while I listen to music and clear my head
Calling friends and telling the truth, even when the answer to “how are you?” is “not great”
Noticing nature, feeling the wind (even though it's freezing outside)
Drinking water (or chrysanthemum tea)
Taking naps whenever my body nudges me to
I want to feel good in my body, not just close rings on my watch or have others validate my progress. Welcome to Untapped Well-being, where feeling good matters more than doing it perfectly.
