Stress and Burnout Recovery Kit

What this is

About the workbook

Burnout is rarely fixed by one big change. It is usually a question of where the week is leaking. This kit helps you map that, then rebuild the week around what actually restores you.

Includes a load audit and a recovery planner that assumes you still have a job and a life to run while you use it.

What is in the pack

Twenty-one pages, printable in full or one page at a time. Two education pages open it: Understanding Burnout Part 1, on the difference between stress and burnout, and Part 2, on the stress cycle. After that it turns into worksheets — a Burnout Self-Check, a Stress-Signals Body Map, a two-part Energy Audit covering drains and deposits, The Recovery Menu, a Weekly Workload Planner, an Early-Warning Action Plan, a sheet of Pocket Recovery Cards to cut out, and a Weekly Recovery Reflection. A closing page ends with two write-in prompts. The kit states it is built on stress science and cognitive behavioural (CBT) principles.

The order it suggests

The kit sets out six steps. Print what you need. Read the education pages first, so the thing has a name. Answer the self-check honestly. Map where stress shows up in your body. Track your energy across one ordinary week using the drains and deposits pages. Then plan the following week differently — subtract one drain, schedule two deposits. It is explicit that the audit wants a normal week rather than an unusual one, and that you cannot budget energy you have not counted.

Two different problems, two different repairs

Part 1 separates stress from burnout. Stress is framed as over-activation: too many demands, not enough time, and still caring a great deal. Burnout is framed as depletion after high stress runs for months without recovery, broken into the three dimensions described in workplace research — exhaustion, cynicism and distance, and a reduced sense of effectiveness. The repairs differ, which is the reason the kit bothers with the distinction.

Part 2 makes a second separation: dealing with the stressor and dealing with the stress are two jobs. The situation can end while your body is still carrying what it produced. The page lists what it calls cycle completers — movement, long slow exhales, real connection, crying, making something with your hands, and rest — and proposes a 10 to 20 minute one placed between the day's demands and the evening.

What you print once and what you reprint

The education pages and the Recovery Menu are read-once material. The menu holds 24 options, described in the kit as research-informed, sorted by the time you actually have: Micro at 2–10 minutes, Daily at 15–45 minutes, Weekly at 1–3 hours, and Deep for when the tank is truly low. You tick what you have tried, star what works, and write down your starred five.

The tracking and planning pages are meant to be reprinted. The Weekly Workload Planner asks for an honest capacity score out of ten, sorts the week into MUST, SHOULD and COULD columns, and applies a stated rule: at capacity six or lower the COULD column closes, and at four or lower only the MUSTs survive. The Weekly Recovery Reflection is a five-minute page you print fresh each week. The Early-Warning Action Plan is written once, across green, yellow, orange and red zones, as if-then instructions for a version of you with less energy to decide. The Pocket Recovery Cards are cut out and kept somewhere you will see them.

What the self-check is

The self-check runs fifteen statements across the three zones, rated 0 to 3 for how often each has been true over the last month, with a total per zone. The kit gives guidance for reading those totals — which zone to attend to first, and what to do if all three come out high.

It labels itself on the page as a self-reflection tool rather than a diagnostic test. It says plainly that exhaustion alongside persistent low mood or hopelessness deserves a professional conversation, and it notes that lasting fatigue can have medical causes, pointing you to a doctor when rest is not touching it.

Who this is for, and who should wait

The kit is written for someone who is still functioning — holding down a job, a household, or both — and has noticed that the tank does not refill on a weekend. Its self-check, body map and energy audit are for a person with enough steadiness to look at an ordinary week honestly and plan the next one a little differently. It is also a fit for a reader who cannot yet tell whether they are stressed or burnt out; the two education pages exist for that question, and so does the kit's distinction between dealing with the stressor and dealing with the stress.

It is a weaker fit, on its own, for a few situations. If the exhaustion comes with hopelessness, losing interest in nearly everything, or thoughts of not wanting to be here, bring the kit to a clinician or a doctor before working through it — the kit itself says burnout overlaps with depression and that lasting fatigue can have medical causes. The same goes if you are in a crisis, inside a fresh loss, or in a workplace situation that needs an advocate rather than a planner. It is educational material: the self-check is a reflection tool, not an assessment, and nothing in it is treatment.

How it fits with therapy at TEO

The kit draws on stress science and cognitive behavioural (CBT) principles — the same drains-and-deposits arithmetic and the same if-then planning that a CBT-informed therapist would work through with you in session. At TEO, Mohamad Shabib and Alison Shaji (who sees clients in British Columbia) both work in CBT, and the burnout therapy page describes how a course of sessions is shaped around it.

Therapy adds what a kit cannot: someone to notice the pattern you have stopped seeing, to help you renegotiate the demands behind the drain rather than only budget around them, and to check whether what you are calling burnout is something else. Sessions are by video across British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland & Labrador, evenings and weekends included. A free 15-minute consultation comes first; after that, individual sessions are $150 per 60-minute session. A finished energy audit is a useful thing to bring to the first appointment.

Related pages: Burnout therapy · Mohamad Shabib · Alison Shaji.

Common questions

About using this workbook

This workbook is educational. It is not therapy, not an assessment, and nothing in it is a diagnosis. If you are in crisis, call or text 9-8-8 (Canada, 24/7); 911 in an emergency. Kids Help Phone (for young people): 1-800-668-6868, or text CONNECT to 686868.

Download the PDF

If you want to go further

Working on this with someone

A workbook can take you a surprising distance on its own. If you would rather not do it alone, TEO offers virtual therapy in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland & Labrador — evenings and weekends, with a free 15-minute consultation first and no obligation afterward.

Related: Burnout therapy.

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