You spend all day regulating someone else's nervous system. This is five minutes for yours. You can't pour calm you don't have.
If the cup is empty, that's not a character flaw. It's arithmetic: a lot going out, not much coming back in.
Nothing here asks you to be better, or calmer, or more grateful. It just helps you put a little back. You count too.
In for a slow count of four. Out for a slower six. The long out-breath is the one that tells your body it's safe. Follow the circle if it helps, and stay as long as you like.
Survival mode is a real setting, not a failure. Cereal for dinner is a complete meal. The bare minimum, done with love, is enough today.
Pick a single thing off the list and let it be late, undone, or someone else's. Notice that the world keeps holding. It usually does.
A glass of water. Sixty seconds outside. Five minutes behind a closed door. Tiny is allowed. Tiny still counts as something.
Text the friend. Play the song. You existed before all of this, and that person is still in there, worth a few minutes of the day.
They tell you to fix your own oxygen mask first, and they mean it. A regulated parent is the most powerful tool your child has. Rest is not quitting. It's maintenance on the most important equipment in the house: you.
If the cup is empty most days, not just tonight, that's worth saying out loud to someone who can help: your doctor, a friend, a person who loves you. You're allowed to need support too, and you don't have to earn it by running yourself all the way down first.
Information and support from people who've walked the trail, not medical advice, and never a replacement for care from a real person. Nothing here leaves your device.