How to Care for Your Mental Health This Summer: Avoiding Burnout & Resetting Your Nervous System

Posted June 24, 2025

Summer often feels like a time to breathe easier — with longer days, warm weather, and a sense of freedom in the air. If you’re anything like me – I’ve been waiting for these months all year. This is why we pay what we do to live in Vancouver, right? But for many of us, the season doesn’t always bring the ease we expect.

You might still be carrying the weight of burnout, seasonal depression, grief, or the mental toll of simply trying to keep everything afloat all year. If you’re a caregiver, professional, or someone managing family life and emotional responsibilities, summer can feel like one more thing to manage rather than a time to rest.

At Haven Wellness Collective, we work with many people who experience summer as a complicated season — a time when their body is craving rest but their calendar is demanding more.

This summer, we are inviting you to move differently: with gentleness, clarity, and compassion for where you are right now. Below are practical, therapeutic ways to reset your nervous system, reduce stress, and reclaim your inner sense of safety and joy.

Recognize Summer Burnout Before It Takes Over

Burnout doesn’t only show up in the workplace. It can sneak in through over-socializing, disrupted sleep, emotional labour, and constantly trying to meet others’ needs while ignoring your own.

What starts as summer fun — backyard BBQs, long travel days, hosting guests — can become overwhelming without space to breathe.
Watch for these subtle signs of burnout:

Irritability or snapping more easily, even at things that wouldn’t normally bother you
Difficulty relaxing or sleeping, despite being exhausted
Feeling emotionally flat, numb, or disconnected from the season and the people around you
Overcommitting, thinking “just one more thing” will be fine — until it isn’t
Physical tension in your jaw, shoulders, or chest that doesn’t go away even when you’re resting

What can you do about it?

Practice micro-breaks: Just 2–5 minutes of intentional stillness between activities can help regulate your nervous system. Try a brief body scan, a few deep breaths, or sitting in silence without reaching for your phone.
Say no without guilt: You are allowed to decline events or outings — even ones that seem fun. If saying yes fills you with stress about how to make it all work, it’s a sign your system needs space more than stimulation.
Give yourself compassion: “You are not a bad friend, partner, or parent for needing rest. You are human — and that’s enough.”

Reset Your Nervous System with Simple Practices

Our nervous systems are not designed to go nonstop, even for joyful things. When we don’t give ourselves the time and space to come back to baseline, stress accumulates silently — often showing up as fatigue, anxiety, or emotional shutdown.

Try integrating the following nervous system reset tools into your week:

Practice	Purpose	How to Do It
Deep 4‑7‑8 Breathing	Moves your body from fight-or-flight to rest	Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 7, exhale for 8. Repeat 3–5 times.
Progressive Muscle Release	Releases unconscious tension from your body	Tense and relax each muscle group for ~5 seconds, from head to toe.
Cold Water Exposure	Builds vagal tone and resets energy	Splash face with cold water, take a cool shower, or soak your feet briefly.
Nature Micro-Walks	Reconnects to a calming rhythm	Stand barefoot outside, walk slowly without your phone, breathe with intention.
Mindful Mealtime	Encourages grounding and gentle nourishment	Eat slowly, chew fully, and observe textures and tastes without distraction.

These practices aren’t about doing them perfectly — they’re about coming back to yourself. Even one grounding moment can help shift your body from doing into being.

Stay Grounded with Rest — Beyond Productivity

We live in a culture that rewards being busy. Even summer rest can feel like something to achieve — a checklist of hikes, travel, social time, and “catching up.” But real rest isn’t productive. It’s permission to exist without expectation.

Try reframing rest as a basic need, not a reward.

Unplug intentionally: Choose one hour each day where you avoid screens and external input. Let your brain and body recalibrate.

Choose energy-supporting rest: Sometimes rest looks like gentle movement, art-making, or laughter. Tune in to what actually feels restorative — not what sounds good on paper.

Anchor rest to routines: Pair rest with something you already do (e.g., stretching after brushing your teeth, breathing deeply after coffee). Small anchors make consistency easier.

Connect With Yourself and Your Loved Ones

Connection is one of the most powerful tools we have to regulate our nervous systems. When we feel emotionally seen and physically safe with others, our bodies naturally shift toward calm.

But summer schedules can make meaningful connection harder to access. Try these small ways to reconnect:

- Partner or family check-ins: Share honestly how you’re feeling — not just the logistics, but the emotional stuff too. (“I’m feeling a bit overstimulated today. Can we take things slower?”)

Plan & Prioritize: There are so many options for what you can do and who you can see this summer, and deciding those things can feel overwhelming. Sit down and think about “what do I want my summer to look like?” “Who is important for me to spend time with? And be clear about who and what are your priorities this summer. This will make it a lot easier to say no to events that aren’t on that list if you need.

Solo time for emotional recharging: Plan one thing per week that’s just for you — not your partner, kids, or friends. A quiet coffee, a solo swim, or even a nap with your phone off.
Engage in Movement Together: Group walks, stretching, swimming, or gentle games can bring lighthearted connection without the pressure of deep conversation.

Know When to Ask for More Support

Burnout and emotional dysregulation don’t always go away with a walk or a nap. Sometimes what we truly need is space to unpack what’s underneath — and someone trained to walk alongside us.

Counselling isn’t only for crisis. It’s also for:

Rebuilding emotional awareness after a period of numbness or survival mode
Learning nervous-system regulation tools that work for your body
Creating sustainable boundaries and routines that support your values and capacity
Deepening self-trust and releasing guilt around rest, neediness, or imperfection

At Haven Wellness Collective, our team of warm, skilled counsellors in Vancouver offer support for people navigating summer burnout, anxiety, life transitions, and the desire to simply feel better.

Ready to Feel More Grounded This Summer?

Take one gentle step today. Here’s how:

Try out 2 practices from this list consistently for one week
Journal any shifts you notice — energy, sleep, mood, or tension
Book a free 15-minute consultation to explore how counselling could support you

You don’t have to power through summer. You’re allowed to soften, to pause, and to receive. Let this be the season you come home to yourself — not through hustle, but through healing and rest.