Your Reset Menu: A Nervous System Starter Kit

This is a short guide for building your own reset menu, one that fits your specific nervous system instead of a generic list of tips.

Most advice about restoring a calm body and mind assumes you already know you're worked up. If you have ADHD (though this guide can be useful for anyone with a nervous system!), you often don't catch it until you're already snapping at someone, shutting down in a meeting, or replaying a conversation for the ninth time.

Inside you'll find six body-based tools you can actually use, including a few nobody around you will notice. There are also journaling prompts to help you figure out your own early signals, the physical clues that show up before you consciously know something is off, and the states that make you more likely to get there in the first place.

Then you build the menu. You try what sounds doable, keep what works for you, and end up with a short list you can reach for instead of trying to think your way to calm.

Regulating your body first is not the whole answer. It is what makes the rest of it possible, because you cannot problem-solve, repair, or make a good decision while your nervous system is convinced you are in danger.

Written by an ADHD therapist who has both taught this and needed it.