Third-generation sisters revive a family fashion legacy with their first-ever exhibition participation at The Ashok Hotel, New Delhi. New Delhi, India – May 18, 2026 – Elite Styles Fashion, a women-and-family-owned Indian fashion brand revived by sisters Swatika Jain, Shuchita Jain, and Smrita Jain, is proud to announce its first-ever pop-up show and exhibition participation at two celebrated festive showcases in New Delhi this July. Elite Styles Fashion will debut at the Mahila Mangal Teej Mela on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, at the Convention Hall, The Ashok Hotel, New Delhi, at Stall No. 49. The brand will also participate in Swar Manjari’s Shringar Sawan Teej Rakhi Mela on Saturday, July 18, 2026, at the Convention Hall, The Ashok Hotel, New Delhi, at Stall No. 75. For Elite Styles Fashion, this debut is more than a business milestone. It is a full-circle family moment. As children, the Jain sisters remember being taken by their mother to Delhi’s beloved festive pop-up shows and exhibitions, spaces filled with color, tradition, women-led enterprise, handcrafted fashion, jewelry, gifting, conversation, and community. Now, for the first time, the sisters return to that same world not as visitors, but as exhibitors carrying forward a family fashion legacy that began generations ago. “Growing up, our mother took us to these pop-up shows, and those visits became part of our memories of fashion, womanhood, family, and celebration,” said Swatika, Shuchita, and Smrita Jain, founders of Elite Styles Fashion. “To participate in these exhibitions for the first time as sisters and as the next generation of Elite Styles is deeply emotional. It feels like we are stepping into a tradition that shaped us, while also creating a new chapter for the women who will discover our brand.” The story of Elite Styles Fashion reaches back to the 1940s, when the founders’ grandfather, Mr. Hoshiyar Chand Jain, opened a small atelier dedicated to bespoke, hand-crafted garments. His work became known for refinement, precision, and timeless Indian craftsmanship. The legacy was later carried forward by founders’ father, Mr. Vijay Kumar Jain, whose devotion to detail and elegance kept the family name closely tied to quality and trust. Though the original atelier closed after his retirement in 2004, the spirit of the brand remained alive within the family. Today, Elite Styles Fashion has been revived with a fresh vision for modern Indian and Indo-Western dressing. The brand offers curated pieces for women who value heritage, elegance, comfort, and contemporary style, including kurta sets, coord sets, kaftans, party wear, and festive selections designed for elevated everyday dressing. The timing of the brand’s first exhibition is especially meaningful because of its connection to Teej, a festival celebrated by women across India and Indian communities around the world. Associated with the monsoon season, devotion, renewal, feminine grace, mehndi, music, festive attire, and the sacred union of Goddess Parvati and Lord Shiva, Teej holds a special place in the hearts of Indian women. For many women living away from India, Teej is also a way to carry tradition across borders, through clothing, rituals, sisterhood, gifting, and community gatherings. Delhi’s Teej and Rakhi pop-up shows have long served as more than shopping events. They are cultural meeting points where mothers, daughters, sisters, homemakers, designers, artisans, and entrepreneurs come together before the festive season. These exhibitions preserve tradition while also giving women a platform to display, sell, create, and build financial independence. For Elite Styles Fashion, participating in this environment represents the perfect beginning: a return to roots, a celebration of women, and a public introduction of the brand’s renewed identity. “At Elite Styles Fashion, every piece is connected to our family’s past and to the women of today,” the founders added. “We want our customers to feel dressed in something that carries history, but still feels fresh, wearable, and personal. Beginning our exhibition journey during Teej, among women, families, and festive shoppers, feels exactly right.” Visitors are invited to meet the founders, explore the collection, and experience the brand’s first pop-up presentation at: Mahila Mangal Teej Mela Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2026 Venue: Convention Hall, The Ashok Hotel, New Delhi Stall: 49 Swar Manjari – Shringar Sawan Teej Rakhi Mela Date: Saturday, July 18, 2026 Venue: Convention Hall, The Ashok Hotel, New Delhi Stall: 75 About Elite Styles Fashion Elite Styles Fashion is a third-generation, women-and-family-owned Indian fashion brand revived by sisters Swatika Jain, Shuchita Jain, and Smrita Jain. Rooted in a family fashion legacy that began in the 1940s, the brand brings together Indian craftsmanship, Indo-Western styling, and contemporary elegance through curated clothing for modern women. Elite Styles Fashion celebrates heritage, family, refinement, and the timeless beauty of handcrafted Indian fashion. Media contact for Elite Styles Fashion Smrita Jain The Aquario Group Email Instagram Website WhatsApp/Phone: +1 731-707-0809

Written by Julie Zdravkovski, Spiritual Advisor & Medium Julie Zdravkovski is a spiritual advisor and thought leader redefining how we engage with intuition, transformation, and personal power. Known for her direct, no-bypass approach, she challenges spiritual narratives and guides people back to grounded, embodied truth. There comes a moment, sometimes quietly and sometimes all at once, when the life you have spent years building begins to feel less like an achievement and more like a costume. Nothing has gone wrong, and nothing has collapsed. From the outside, everything is still working in the way it was always meant to, and yet something inside you has begun to register that the shape of your life no longer matches the shape of the person living it. This is one of the most disorienting experiences a person can have, because there is no obvious reason for it. You are not unhappy in the way unhappiness is usually understood. You are not failing. You have not lost anything. You have, in fact, achieved many of the things you once set out to achieve, and the strangeness is not that those things stopped working, but that they stopped feeling like yours. What most people do not realise, and what no one is taught to look for, is that you can outgrow a life the same way you outgrow a relationship, a career, or a version of yourself that once felt complete. You can outgrow it without anything being wrong with it. You can outgrow it precisely because it served you so well that you no longer need it in the same way you once did, and the discomfort you are feeling is not a sign that something has gone wrong, but a sign that something has been quietly completed. The difficulty is that no one prepares you for this. You are taught how to build a life. You are not taught what to do when the life you built no longer fits the person you have become. When the goals you worked toward stop feeling like yours What tends to happen first is that the long-term goals and dreams you have been working toward for years begin to lose their pull. The desire fades, and the excitement that used to carry you forward becomes harder to access, and you cannot always say why. The goal itself has not changed, but something inside you has, and the gap between the two starts to quietly widen. This shows up across every kind of life. It shows up for the person who has been working toward finding a long-term partner, getting married, having children, and buying a home. It shows up for the person who has been climbing the corporate ladder, becoming the head of a department, and planning eventually to take everything they have learned and build their own business. It shows up for the person on a spiritual path who has been working toward becoming a healer, developing their intuitive abilities, or offering mentorship, counselling, or readings to others. What happens, almost without warning, is that the outcome itself stops resonating. The moment the goal is presented to you, the moment you are on the precipice of saying yes and stepping fully into the thing you have been building toward, your body has a visceral response. Your intuition is telling you that this is no longer your path. That the version of you who wanted this has been outgrown. That something else is trying to evolve through you. The part of you that is trying to evolve feels just out of reach. It feels like, in order to follow it, you would have to start all over again, but that is rarely the truth. You are not starting over; you are simply pivoting, changing direction. The moment you actually allow that direction to shift, things begin to flow again in a way they have not flowed for a long time. What it actually looks and feels like, from the inside, is that your old life starts to feel stuck and stifled. There is too much routine and little room for spontaneity, for new dreams, and for you to follow what is actually pulling at you. The structure that once supported you is now containing you, and those are two very different things. Why this is so disorienting, even when nothing has gone wrong What makes this experience so disorienting is that, from the outside, everyone around you can see that you have built something good. People perceive that this is exactly what you should be doing, exactly the life you should be in, exactly the version of yourself you have always said you wanted to become. But internally, a different conversation is happening. Often, it is not even at a conscious level. You are not sitting yourself down and saying, “This is not what I want anymore.” It is far quieter than that. It starts as a feeling in the body, a sense of confinement, a creeping stagnation that signals something is no longer right, even though you cannot fully articulate what. It is those feelings that eventually force you to look outside the structure you have created. The moment you do, the moment you begin to explore what else is out there, you start to come into alignment with other dreams, other goals, and other passion projects that have been waiting for you. Once that happens, the life you have built can no longer support you in the way it once did, because it was built to hold a version of you that has already moved on. This is why this experience feels so disorienting. You worked hard for this structure, you built it deliberately, and it gave you stability, freedom, and the ability to follow your dreams. Now, though, that same structure that once liberated you is starting to feel like a container that no longer fits. But this is not unusual. It is the same thing that happens when you start a family in a small home and find, a few years later, that you need to upsize. The structure that fit perfectly at the time can no longer hold what your life has become. What is true for a home is just as true for a career, a relationship, a belief system, or an entire identity. Why this is not a crisis, even though it can feel like one As spiritual beings living a human experience, we are constantly evolving and outgrowing old structures. It is not the exception; it is the rule. Yet, when this outgrowing actually arrives, it almost never arrives as clarity. It arrives as restlessness, dissatisfaction, guilt, immense overwhelm, or an inexplicable sadness you cannot trace to anything in particular. The reason it arrives in this way is that, if it did not, you would not move. You would stay exactly where you are because the structure feels safe, predictable, and known. Discomfort is the catalyst. It is what asks you to question, to seek wise counsel, to look honestly at where you are, and to consider whether something more aligned is waiting for you. As human beings, we are not designed for the easy road. We are designed to stretch, to challenge ourselves, to evolve. There are seasons of rest, seasons of consolidation, and seasons where you settle into something new, but those seasons are never permanent. There is always something next being asked of you, and the cycles of change in our lives reflect that. The smaller shifts happen every year. They tend to relate to things within your control, such as your health, routines, connections, hobbies, and passion projects. The larger shifts occur every 2 to 4 years and tend to involve your career, location, financial direction, or how you are educating yourself. Then, every seven to twelve years, there are the deeper identity shifts, the ones that are genuinely transformative, that ask you to become someone you have not yet been. These cycles are not interruptions to your life. They are the architecture of it. They are happening for your evolution and your growth, arriving with a particular kind of restlessness, an unmistakable pull toward something more aligned. When the goal you set years ago outgrows your current self or ceases to bring joy, your soul invites you to reach for something larger, different, or simply truer to who you are becoming. Trust that call, because it leads you to the life that fits you now. What is actually happening at the soul level At a soul level, what is taking place is the evolution of the soul itself through what people often classify as lessons. But it is more accurate to think of them as layers, layers of the soul evolving, one on top of the other, each one building on what came before. A lesson always repeats itself until it is integrated. The same theme will show up across different areas of your life, in romantic relationships, in a work situation, or in a particular environment, and each appearance offers you another opportunity to meet it more fully than you did the last time. One lesson might be learning to speak your truth. Once you have begun to honour that in one part of your life, the next layer will arrive. Perhaps now you are being asked to share your voice publicly because that is where you will shine the most, serve the most, and be of greatest use. As your soul moves through these cycles, it is layering wisdom upon wisdom. As the soul evolves, you, as a human being, can no longer stay where you have been. The thing that once fulfilled you, the career that once lit you up, the belief system that once made sense of your life, none of it will continue to fit a soul that has outgrown the version of you who first chose it. There is also a distinction worth naming here, because both can be present at once. There is what you want, and there is what you envision. A want is something you reach for that, once obtained, often stops fulfilling you, because the wanting itself was the thing. A vision is different. A vision pulls you forward, stretches you, and asks you to move beyond a belief that says, “I cannot do that,” into a place that says, “I do not yet know how, but I will figure it out.” The soul is rarely after the want; the soul is after the vision. Why high achievers struggle most with this It is often the most capable, high-achieving people who struggle the most to admit that what they have built is no longer working for them. The reason is not pride. They understand, more than anyone, exactly what it took to build it. They know the time, money, and mental space, along with the physical exhaustion and the things they gave up along the way to make it real. So, walking away from it, even when it has stopped fitting, feels like an admission of failure. It feels like everything they sacrificed for it was for nothing. But it is not a failure. What they have actually done is build something that is sustainable, and sustainability does not require that the original architect remain in the room forever. There is something else for them to grow toward, another version of their contribution waiting to be made. What I have seen, time and time again, in the people who finally allow themselves to admit they have outgrown what they have built, is that they go on to build something even greater, even more successful, and far more fulfilling than what they let go of. Sometimes they move entirely away from what they created, and sometimes they keep it but entrust it to someone else to carry forward. Sometimes, the person who has been working within a corporate structure leaves to build their own business and becomes extraordinarily successful because they are finally aligned with what they do. Sometimes, the person inside a corporate role steps into a larger position, not because they are chasing status or money, but because they want to share what they know with the people coming up behind them. There is no version of this story where outgrowing what you built means you have failed. There is only the version where you have evolved beyond what you originally needed, and something larger is being asked of you next. How can you tell a chapter has actually been completed? You can tell that a chapter of your life has been completed, even when nothing has formally ended, by what begins to appear in the space around you. The soul is always trying to make space. It is trying to release something that was once central to who you were, so that something else can begin to grow in its place. When that happens, you start to notice a new vision emerging. Perhaps as a flash of an idea for a product or a service, perhaps as a conversation that lights you up in a way nothing has lit you up in months, perhaps in the moment someone tells you about a person who has just made a significant change in their life and is now living more fully than you have seen them live before. If hearing that kind of story makes you stop and quietly question where you are because you can feel that you are not living with that level of excitement or fulfilment yourself, that is a signal. That is the soul telling you that this chapter is done. You have done what you needed to do. You can pass the baton, or you can close this chapter entirely, but either way, the next thing is asking for room. When that is happening, you can feel it in your body. There is a sense of expansion when you think about the new direction, and a sense of constriction when you think about staying in what you have built. Both are accurate and contain information. The soul is moving, whether you have given yourself permission to move with it or not. The real cost of staying Even when people can feel that they have outgrown a life, there is real resistance to changing it. The cost of staying inside something that has been quietly completed takes a toll, predominantly on your well being. You become more exhausted. You feel melancholy at times, without being able to pinpoint a specific cause. You start to retreat into a kind of hermit mode, doing only what is absolutely necessary and saving what little energy you have for yourself. A quiet, subtle sadness begins to settle into the background of your days, and it does not lift, because the thing that is causing it cannot be addressed from inside the structure that is causing it. This is not exclusive to whole life outgrowing. It can apply to a single area, such as a career, a relationship, or a particular phase of your spiritual evolution, where you can no longer keep your eyes closed to what else is out there. Wherever it shows up, the cost is the same. The reason people stay, even when they know they have outgrown something, is that the current life is familiar. They know what every day is going to look like. The moment they decide to change, the landscape becomes unfamiliar. The terrain is something they have to navigate without a map. There is no GPS for life, and so the unknown becomes a more compelling reason to stay than the known discomfort of where they already are. But think of the times you have taken a road trip without knowing exactly what the outcome would be. There are twists, there are turns, and yet, at the end of it, you feel more alive than you did when you began. Something changed you, and that is what is waiting on the other side of allowing yourself to outgrow what no longer fits. What outgrowing your life actually looks like What shifts for someone when they understand that outgrowing their life is not a failure but a sign of soul evolution? Everything. A new perspective opens, and a new way of being becomes possible. They begin to connect with different people, perhaps relocate, perhaps travel, perhaps return to themselves in a way they have not been able to for years. There is more adventure, more to experience, and there is more life available to them than there was when they were still trying to fit themselves into something that no longer matched who they had become. The journey itself is the gift, not the destination. The road trip without a fixed endpoint, where you are not chasing a particular outcome, where you are simply willing to follow the road and see what it offers. That is what your soul wants. That is what happens when you outgrow your life. You take that road trip, knowing you have everything you actually need. You have the car, the food, the water, and the fuel. There will be signposts along the way if you need to replenish, and you may even meet someone along the way who arrives at exactly the right moment to point you in the right direction if you’re feeling lost. You are always guided along the journey. The only thing you do not know yet is the destination. That does not mean what is waiting for you is worse than what you are leaving. If anything, what is waiting will leave you humbled, deeply grateful for what you have already experienced. You will most likely feel quietly proud of the version of you who had the courage to outgrow what no longer fit, in order to step into something that finally does. What you already know You already know that the life you are in has shifted. You can feel it underneath everything you are doing, even on the days when you are still managing to make it all look like it is working. You know which part of your life it is and which chapter has quietly completed itself. You know which vision has been pulling at you for months, perhaps for years, that you have been trying to dismiss as impractical, ungrateful, or unrealistic. It is none of those things. The soul is making room for the next layer, which is asking to come through. It is the natural, sacred rhythm of a life that is still becoming. Nothing has to be wrong for this to be true, and nothing has to collapse. You are simply being invited, gently and unmistakably, to outgrow what no longer fits, so that what is actually yours next has somewhere to land. A note from me, and an invitation If something in this piece raised a question you have been carrying, about a life chapter that feels quietly complete, a vision that keeps tugging at you, or a knowing you cannot yet act on, send it to me. Each month, I choose questions from readers and channel a response in this column. You will not be named. You will simply be heard, and through you, others sitting with the same thing will be heard too. Send your questions here. If at some point you want to work with me more directly, you can find ways to do so here. Spiritual advisory sessions, classes, books, and more are all there when you are ready, and not before. I am Julie. I am a medium. I am genuinely interested in what you already know but have not yet trusted. Follow me on Instagram for more info! Read more from Julie Zdravkovski Julie Zdravkovski, Spiritual Advisor & Medium Julie Zdravkovski is an international spiritual advisor, teacher, and thought leader known for challenging the norms of the spiritual and self-development space. With over 30 years of experience, she cuts through surface-level spirituality to deliver grounded, direct insight that prioritizes truth over comfort. Beginning as a child medium, Julie has spent decades refining her intuitive abilities while also building a corporate career in leadership and human behavior. This dual lens allowed her to bridge spirituality with real-world application in a way that is both practical and transformative which propelled her in building a professional spiritual-led business, Modern Day Medium.

Written by Janice Elsley, Leadership Expert, International Author, and Podcast Host Janice Elsley is a leadership strategist, author, and keynote speaker who helps CEOs and leaders elevate their impact. As founder of Harissa Business Partners, she blends neuroscience, change management, and human design to drive success. Burnout is costing Australia $14 billion a year. The problem isn't just tired workers. It's the leadership mindset that created them. She was one of the best leaders I'd ever worked with. Strategic. Calm under pressure. The person everyone wanted on their team. And at 10:47 p.m. on a Tuesday, she was sitting in her car in the office car park, too exhausted to drive home, wondering when "just push through it" had stopped working. That moment, the one where high performance crosses into something unsustainable, I've seen it more times than I can count. In boardrooms. In one-on-one. In the mirror. There's a phrase that gets thrown around in Australian workplaces like it's a virtue: just push through it. You've heard it. Maybe you've said it. It gets dressed up depending on the industry. "Stay strong." "Dig deep." "Be a team player." But the message is always the same: don't stop. Don't slow down. Whatever you're feeling right now, shelve it and get back to work. For a long time, that approach was treated as good leadership. Resilient. No nonsense. Results-driven. It isn't. It's expensive. It's breaking people. The real cost of “just push through” Workplace burnout is costing the Australian economy an estimated $14 billion every year. That number accounts for absenteeism, reduced productivity, and turnover. It doesn't capture the quieter costs. The good people who stop trying. The ones who stay in the building but mentally checked out months ago. The leaders who can't remember the last time they felt genuinely present with their own families. Here's the part that should make every leader pause: 81% of Australian workers report managing workplace stress entirely on their own, without any support from their employer. Let that sit for a moment. Eight in ten people are absorbing the full weight of workplace pressure silently because the culture around them either doesn't notice or doesn't prioritize it. That's not a wellness problem. That's a leadership problem. How we got here Hustle culture didn't arrive out of nowhere. It was built, piece by piece, through decades of rewarding the person who stayed latest, praising the team that hit targets regardless of how they got there, and quietly ignoring the warning signs when people started fraying at the edges. I've sat in leadership meetings where someone's overwork was celebrated as dedication. I've watched performance reviews reward endurance over effectiveness. I've heard managers say, "If you can handle the pressure, you're leadership material. If you need a break, you're not cut out for it." That belief runs deep. It's doing real damage. When leaders model "push through" behaviour, their teams mirror it. People don't take sick days because it feels like weakness. They don't raise concerns because it looks like complaining. They run on empty until the tank is genuinely dry, and then they either leave or break down. Both outcomes cost the organization far more than simply creating a culture where rest and support are normalized in the first place. What this actually costs you The $14 billion figure is a national-level number, and it's tempting to think of it as someone else's problem. But think about what it looks like at team level. A mid-level manager burns out. They leave. You spend three to six months recruiting and onboarding a replacement. Productivity drops across the team during that gap. The institutional knowledge they carried walks out the door with them. Meanwhile, the remaining team members absorb the extra workload, quietly building their own burnout trajectory. Research consistently shows that replacing an employee costs anywhere from 50% to 200% of their annual salary, depending on the role. For senior or specialist positions, that number climbs even higher. This isn't bad luck. It's predictable. Most of it is preventable. The mindset that has to change The shift that's needed isn't complicated, but it does require leaders to examine something uncomfortable: the belief that pressure and performance are the same thing. They're not. Sustained pressure without recovery doesn't produce high performance. It produces a slow deterioration in judgment, creativity, and engagement. Neuroscience backs this up. When the brain is in a chronic stress state, it prioritizes short-term threat response over higher-order thinking. Your team can't solve problems well, build strong relationships, or make good decisions when they're running on cortisol and sleep debt. What actually produces consistent performance is psychological safety, recovery time, and the genuine sense that the people leading you see you as a person, not just a resource. I learned this the hard way. Early in my career, I wore my exhaustion like a badge. I believed that if I wasn't running on fumes, I wasn't working hard enough. It took my body forcing the issue, a full system shutdown I couldn't ignore, for me to realize that sustainable leadership requires a fundamentally different approach. Practical shifts leaders can make now None of what follows requires a budget line or a new HR policy. These are behavioural changes, and they start with you. Stop rewarding endurance as a performance metric If someone sends emails at midnight, the response shouldn't be admiration. It should be a quiet check in about whether workloads are sustainable. When leaders praise overwork, they signal that overwork is what's valued here. Ask real questions and actually listen to the answers Not "are you okay?" as you walk past. Sit down. Ask what's getting in the way of their best work. Ask what support would actually help. Then follow through on what you hear. I worked with a leader who started doing this. She blocked 15 minutes every week with each direct report, with no agenda except, "What do you need?" Six months later, her team's engagement scores were the highest in the organization. Not because she fixed everything, but because people felt seen. Model recovery yourself Take your leave. Leave work at a reasonable hour sometimes. Talk openly about the fact that you need rest to perform well. If you're the leader and you never stop, your team will feel they can't either. Build in space for hard conversations When people can flag concerns early, problems get addressed before they become crises. Create regular one on one check ins where the agenda isn't just task updates. Make it safe to say, "I'm struggling." Address workload before it becomes a crisis This requires leaders to be proactive, not reactive. If someone on your team is consistently working more than they should be, that's a structural problem, and it's your job to solve it. The business case is simple Leadership that genuinely supports people isn't soft. It's strategic. Teams with psychologically safe environments perform better, innovate more, and retain talent longer. The data on this is consistent across industries and cultures. Google's Project Aristotle found psychological safety to be the single biggest predictor of team effectiveness, above skill, experience, or work ethic. Australia's $14 billion burnout bill isn't a workforce problem waiting for a government solution. A significant chunk of it can be addressed at the leadership level, one team, one conversation, one mindset shift at a time. The question isn't whether you can afford to change how you lead. It's whether you can afford not to. I think about the leaders I've watched break. The ones who believed rest was weakness until their bodies made the choice for them. The talented people who left organizations they loved because the culture made it impossible to stay whole. I wonder, "What would have been different if just one person in their orbit had said, 'Your worth isn't measured by your exhaustion'?" Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Janice Elsley Janice Elsley, Leadership Expert, International Author, and Podcast Host Janice Elsley is a leadership expert, author, and keynote speaker helping CEOs and executives future-proof their leadership with neuroscience-driven strategies. As founder of Harissa Business Partners, she drives performance, inclusivity, and talent retention. Her book Leadership Legacy and programs, Leading Edge Women, The Leading Edge, and First 100 Days of Leadership, equip leaders with the confidence and strategies to make an impact. Whether coaching executives or delivering transformational keynotes, Janice creates real results.

Catherine Divaris is a Mental Health Occupational Therapist by training, Emotional Regulation Coach, and founder of Mind/Mom Potential, empowering individuals and organizations to build mental resilience, master emotional and nervous system regulation, and perform effectively in high-demand environments. Catherine Divaris, Mental Health Occupational Therapist Why does it feel like you’re failing at work and motherhood at the same time… even when you’re doing everything “right”? There’s a quiet tension many women carry. You’re in one place, but your mind is elsewhere. At work, you’re thinking about home. At home, you’re thinking about work. There’s a sense of never fully arriving anywhere. What often goes unseen is the mental load. The constant tracking, anticipating, remembering. It doesn’t turn off. It follows you through the entire day. Over time, your attention gets pulled in too many directions. You start to feel scattered, stretched thin. That feeling of “I’m failing” creeps in. But what’s really happening is overload. You’re holding more than your system can comfortably sustain on your own. When that happens, everything starts to feel heavier. Focus, patience, even joy. What actually happens in a woman’s nervous system during maternity leave, and why can returning to work feel so unexpectedly overwhelming? We tend to speak about maternity leave as if it’s a pause. But for many women, it’s one of the most demanding periods they will ever go through. You are recovering physically, adjusting hormonally, and at the same time becoming deeply attuned to another human being. Your system becomes more alert, more responsive, more vigilant. There’s depth and connection in that experience, but also a steady level of output that doesn’t get acknowledged. So when you return to work, you are not returning from rest. You are returning from a period of continuous output, often without full recovery. Then you’re expected to move straight back into productivity. That’s where the overwhelm shows up. There’s no real transition between those two worlds. From your experience as an occupational therapist, what are companies missing when it comes to what new mothers actually need in order to function and perform well at work? Many organizations focus on performance without considering capacity. Motherhood changes how energy is distributed. Sleep is different. Attention is divided. There’s a constant background awareness running alongside everything else. Around 1 in 5 women experience postpartum depression or anxiety, and even without a clinical diagnosis, many are navigating reduced sleep and increased cognitive load for months. At the same time, expectations at work often stay the same.That gap creates pressure. Women feel like they’re constantly trying to catch up to a version of themselves that no longer exists in the same way. When companies begin to recognize capacity, the conversation shifts. Flexibility, pacing, and support start to matter in a more practical way. People tend to stay more engaged when they feel understood. They’re able to contribute more consistently over time. You speak a lot about real-time regulation. What are some of the tools or practices you teach that women can actually use in the moment when things feel overwhelming? In moments of overwhelm, the body is often the first to speak. There is a tightening, a quickening, a sense that everything is happening all at once. In those moments, the entry point is physical. So we begin with something immediate. Slowing the breath. Feeling the ground. Bringing attention back to something physical and present. It’s subtle, but it creates a shift. A small pocket of space inside the experience. I also pay close attention to the environment someone is operating in. Many women are navigating constant sensory input. Noise, clutter, competing demands. It’s not just the workload, it’s the atmosphere around it. When that is reduced, even slightly, the system begins to settle. When things feel like too much, the mind tends to spiral. Helping clients stay with the moment, while still taking a next step, can be enough to shift their state. Often, the shift is not in removing the difficulty, but in changing the relationship to it. Allowing both things to be true. This is hard. I can still move. This is something we build over time. Through repetition, in the middle of real life. How have your own experiences with occupational therapy, IVF, and motherhood shaped the way you support your clients today? There is a difference between understanding something conceptually and living it. My clinical training gave me a framework. It taught me how to observe, assess, and support. But my personal experiences changed how I apply that knowledge. Moving countries, going through IVF, becoming a mother, building a business alongside all of it. Those experiences bring you face to face with your abilities in a very real way. They bring you into direct contact with your limits. Your capacity shifts. Your priorities shift. What you can hold on a given day is not always predictable. So the question I return to in my work is simple, but often overlooked. What is actually available to you right now? From there, the work becomes more grounded. Sometimes it means adjusting expectations. Sometimes it means creating more support. Sometimes it means simplifying what’s already there. Because sustainable change doesn’t come from pushing harder. It comes from working with the reality of where you are. When that happens, something shifts. Not just in what you do, but in how you experience your life. This is the work I guide women through inside my CALM Container framework and workshops. Because my mission is simple. To bring awareness to the fact that mental health is not an add-on, it’s the internal scaffolding that allows us to function at our highest potential. Support the system. Lead the moment. Come back to CALM. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Catherine Divaris

Written by Kelsey Irving, Licensed Clinical Therapist Kelsey Irving is a licensed therapist and recognized specialist in OCD and anxiety disorders. She is the founder of Steadfast Psychology Group and author of the children’s book Jacob and the Cloud. From the outside, everything looks fine. Your career is stable. Your relationships are healthy enough. You’ve worked hard to build a life that once felt far away. Maybe you finally have the house, the family, the degree, the financial stability, or simply more peace than you used to. So why does your body still feel like something is wrong? It’s one of the most common and confusing questions I hear in therapy, “Why am I anxious when I finally have so much to be grateful for?” Many people assume anxiety only makes sense during obvious hardship. But anxiety is not always a reflection of your current circumstances. Often, it is a reflection of what your nervous system learned long before your life became stable. If chaos, unpredictability, criticism, emotional instability, or chronic stress were once normal for you, calm can feel unfamiliar, even unsafe. Your nervous system may still be operating as though it has to scan for danger at all times. This is especially common in high-functioning adults. The people who appear the most “together” are often the ones who learned early in life that achievement, productivity, perfectionism, or emotional self-control were necessary for safety, approval, or stability. Over time, the body adapts to living in a constant state of anticipation, "What’s next? What could go wrong? What am I forgetting?" When life finally slows down enough to breathe, many people discover something unsettling, "Without the next crisis to solve, their anxiety becomes louder. Some begin to fear happiness itself." Not consciously, of course. But deep down, there can be an expectation that peace is temporary, that something bad must be around the corner. For people who have experienced disappointment, instability, or emotional unpredictability, joy can feel vulnerable. The mind starts bracing for loss before anything has even happened. Others struggle with stillness because their identity became built around striving. Productivity creates a sense of worth. Busyness creates a sense of control. If they stop moving, achieving, planning, or fixing, they feel exposed to emotions they’ve spent years outrunning. This is why anxiety can persist even when life objectively improves. Because healing is not just about changing your circumstances. It’s also about teaching your nervous system that it no longer has to survive the way it once did. That process takes time. It often involves learning how to tolerate calm without immediately searching for the next problem. Learning that rest is not laziness. Learning that peace does not always mean something bad is about to happen. Learning that your value is not measured solely by your usefulness or productivity. Most importantly, it involves understanding this, "Feeling anxious in a good life does not make you ungrateful. It makes you human." Part of healing is learning how to be still. Not distracted. Not productive. Not fixing or preparing for the next thing. Simply present. For many anxious people, stillness can initially feel uncomfortable because the nervous system has become so accustomed to constant stimulation and vigilance. But learning to tolerate moments of quiet and presence is often where real healing begins. Stillness teaches the body that it is safe to exist without constantly bracing for what comes next. A few simple mindfulness practices that can help build this skill: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 grounding: Pause and notice 5 things you can see, 4 you can touch, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell, and 1 you can taste. This helps anchor the nervous system in the present moment rather than imagined future threats. Box breathing: Slowly inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4, and repeat. This can calm the body’s stress response and create a sense of steadiness. Stillness without distraction: Set a timer for just 2 to 5 minutes and sit quietly without your phone, television, music, or multitasking. Notice thoughts and sensations without trying to change them. The goal is not to “empty your mind,” but to practice staying present with yourself. Stillness is not something anxious people are usually naturally comfortable with. It is something practised, gently, gradually, and with compassion. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Kelsey Irving Kelsey Irving, Licensed Clinical Therapist Kelsey Irving is a licensed therapist specializing in the treatment of adults with OCD and anxiety disorders. Inspired by a close family member’s diagnosis and the widespread misunderstanding of OCD, she became deeply committed to providing informed, compassionate, and effective care. Kelsey serves individuals through her private practice, Steadfast Psychology Group, and extends her impact through her children’s book, Jacob and the Cloud.

Written by Tanya Tsikkos, Innovative Jewelry Designer & CEO of EntityUK Tanya Tsikkos is an innovative jewelry designer who promotes mental health and well-being. COVID-19 left her with emotional challenges, and she found a way to cope and to improve her mental health with her jewelry creations and empowering messages. Starting again doesn’t have to mean pushing harder. Sometimes, the most powerful progress comes from rebuilding your energy in a way that lasts, one small step at a time. Learning to begin again without pressure, urgency, or expectation can change the way you move forward entirely. There’s something about needing to start again that can feel heavier than it should. Nothing dramatic, just a quiet weight that sits underneath everything, the awareness that things feel slower, that your energy isn’t quite where it once was, that even the smallest steps seem to ask more of you than they used to. I’ve felt that myself more times than I can count. It’s in that in-between space where I know I want to move forward, but I also know I can’t do it in the same way as before. That’s often where the pressure creeps in, the urge to catch up, to prove you’re still capable, to get ‘back to normal’ as quickly as possible. But maybe the goal isn’t to go back. Maybe it’s to move forward differently, to meet yourself where you are rather than where you think you should be. Because rebuilding your energy doesn’t come from pressure. It comes from patience, awareness, and learning to respond to yourself in a different way. Simple ways to begin again without burning yourself out 1. The pressure to bounce back We’re so used to the idea that we should recover quickly, that after a period of exhaustion, stress, or simply life feeling heavy, we should be able to reset and return stronger almost immediately. But real energy doesn’t work like that. It comes back gradually, quietly, in ways you don’t always notice at first. And when you try to rush that process, when you expect yourself to operate at full speed before you’re ready, you don’t move forward any faster. You just end up back where you started, exhausted in the same way, for the same reasons. A quiet check-in: "Where are you expecting yourself to be ‘back to normal’? and does that version of you even fit who you are right now?" 2. Starting smaller than you think you should One of the most helpful shifts I’ve made is learning to start smaller than my mind tells me to. Not the full reset. Not the long to-do list. Not the version of the day where everything gets done. Just one small, manageable step. This isn’t about doing less for the sake of it. It’s about rebuilding your energy in a way that is manageable rather than overwhelming. Because when things feel heavy, consistency matters far more than intensity. For example, it might be that you do one thing instead of five, take a short walk instead of skipping it altogether, or simply sit down to read for ten minutes instead of waiting for the ‘right’ time. It doesn’t seem like much in the moment, but it builds something important, momentum you can actually sustain. Try this: Instead of asking, ‘How do I get everything done?’, ask, ‘What’s one thing I can do today that feels manageable?’ Start there. 3. Working with your energy, not against it Your energy isn’t the same every day, and it’s not meant to be. Some days feel lighter, some feel slower. Some moments you feel capable and clear, and others you need to pause more than you’d like to. That’s not something to fix, it’s something to work with. On days when you feel more like yourself, you might naturally do a little more. On days when you don’t, pulling back isn’t failure, it’s awareness. It’s what prevents you from pushing yourself back into exhaustion. The shift happens when you stop trying to override what you feel and start responding to it instead. Something to consider: "What would change if you let your energy guide your pace instead of expecting your pace to stay the same no matter how you feel?" 4. Letting go of the timeline This is often the part that lingers in the background, the feeling that you should be further along by now, that you’ve taken too long and need to hurry up and figure it out. But rebuilding doesn’t follow a neat timeline, and the more pressure you place on yourself to ‘be there already’, the more likely you are to recreate the same patterns that led to burnout in the first place. Letting go of the timeline doesn’t mean you’re giving up. It means you are choosing a way forward that supports you rather than depletes you. You are not behind. You are rebuilding in a way that lasts. A gentle shift is to notice any internal deadlines you’re holding onto. Ask yourself if they are helping you or just adding pressure. 5. Rebuilding trust with yourself Underneath all this, there’s something quieter happening. You’re learning to trust yourself again, to listen when something feels like too much, to stop before you reach the point of exhaustion, and to move forward without pushing yourself past your limits. Rebuilding your energy isn’t just physical, it’s about trusting yourself enough to listen to what you need. That kind of trust isn’t built in big moments. It’s built in the small, everyday decisions where you choose to support yourself. Over time, that creates something steadier than motivation. It creates a way of moving through life that you can rely on. A small reminder is that you don’t need to push yourself to prove anything. Supporting yourself is enough. Just remember You don’t have to rush your way back to where you were. You don’t have to prove that you’re capable by doing everything at once and you don’t have to rebuild your energy in the same way you lost it. Start small, move gently, and let it take the time it needs. Things will begin to shift, not all at once, but in ways you’ll start to notice. A little more clarity here, a little more energy there. A sense of steadiness returning, quietly. You are not starting from scratch. You are starting from experience, and that changes everything! For more empowerment and inspiration, join my mailing list! Subscribe to my website for free and find out more tips on Tanya's blogs. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from Tanya Tsikkos Tanya Tsikkos, Innovative Jewelry Designer & CEO of EntityUK Tanya Tsikkos is an innovative jewellery designer who promotes mental health and wellbeing. COVID-19 left her with emotional challenges, and she found a way to cope and to improve her mental health with her jewellery creations and empowering messages. She has since dedicated her life to helping others to always feel good and empowered . She is the CEO of EntityUK, an online fashion jewellery company that combines jewellery with empowerment in each design. Her mission is to inspire, uplift, and empower all to live their best lives with confidence and style!

Los Angeles, CA, United States, May 5, 2026 – With a growing number of wellness modalities available, the disparity in mental health treatment for children remains concerning. Research shows that natural interventions like mindfulness, exercise, and lifestyle changes can reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression, sometimes matching traditional treatments. Meanwhile, the rise in psychotropic prescriptions among U.S. children raises questions as diagnoses continue to climb. Holistic mental health coach Miriam Putnam is calling for a shift toward root-cause approaches to behavioral and emotional challenges. “It is unbelievable that this many kids are on psych meds,” says Putnam. “These are often lifelong medications with life-altering effects that we must address.” Putnam says medication is too often used as a first-line response rather than a last resort. She advocates for a more balanced, holistic approach that prioritises foundational aspects of a child’s well-being, such as consistent sleep, proper nutrition, exercise, comprehensive blood testing, open communication, and understanding. “Instead of immediately medicating children for behaviours that may be linked to stress, trauma, or unmet needs, we must be asking deeper questions,” Putnam explains. “Is their body healthy? Why is this child expressing dissonance? What are they trying to express?” Her approach encourages families and caregivers to explore underlying contributors such as environmental instability and lifestyle imbalances. According to Putnam, addressing root causes can lead to more sustainable, long-term improvements in a child’s mental and emotional health without the risk of lifelong drug use. Putnam also points to ongoing national discussions and past investigations into prescribing practices, including concerns raised by watchdog groups and federal agencies about overprescription and insufficient oversight. Stricter regulations are necessary, according to Putnam, or, in fact, no psychiatric drugs being prescribed to our kids at all, along with better access to non-pharmaceutical interventions. Increased transparency in how these decisions are made is vital. A new investigation from CCHR International, based on multi-state FOIA data, reveals that millions of children on Medicaid, including toddlers, are being prescribed psychiatric drugs, raising urgent questions about safety, oversight, and early intervention practices. “A high percentage of kids who get put on psychotropic meds end up struggling with drug addiction later in life,” Putnam adds. “We need to be asking whether we are truly helping children, or simply managing symptoms in ways that create new challenges down the road. Marijuana was once called the ‘gateway drug,’ now it's psych meds. This must change to ensure our kids get the care and opportunities in life they deserve." At the heart of Putnam’s message is a call for empowerment, giving parents, educators, and healthcare providers the tools and knowledge to support children in more natural and holistic ways. From improving sleep hygiene and diet to fostering safe spaces for emotional expression, she believes small, consistent changes can have a profound impact. “Healing the body naturally and understanding the root cause of body health and behaviour issues is where real transformation happens,” Putnam concludes. “Our children deserve more, they deserve to be understood.” About Miriam Putnam Miriam Putnam is a certified wellness coach, Freedom from Stress Counselor, and holistic mental health advocate with nearly twenty-five years of experience. Through her work, she helps professionals and entrepreneurs overcome the stress and internal barriers holding them back from reaching the next level in life. She is also a vocal advocate for healthier communities, calling attention to the systemic changes needed to reduce medication dependency and promote more sustainable, root-cause approaches to mental and emotional well-being. For more information about Putnam and her impactful work, visit her website. Miriam Putnam is available for interviews. Follow Miriam Putnam on social media: Facebook Instagram YouTube TikTok LinkedIn

Written by Jaime Waterfield, Leadership Development Coach Jaime Waterfield is a Leadership Development Coach with over 25 years of experience in the technology sector. With a career spanning nearly all functions of the business, she helps leaders build sustainable, business‑grounded leadership as they navigate growth and increased responsibility. If you’ve built your career on being the one with the answers, you’re not alone. For many leaders, being an expert is what earned them trust, recognition, and promotion. I’ve experienced this firsthand, having the answers created early success and momentum, but over time, it kept me stuck. What felt like helping was reinforcing dependency, limiting growth on the team, and quietly increasing the pressure to carry more than I should. What many leaders don’t anticipate is that while the role evolves, their habits often don’t. People continue to bring problems, and out of instinct and good intention, you continue to solve them. Over time, what once looked like effectiveness starts to create pressure and diminishing returns. What helped you succeed earlier in your career can quietly begin to hold both you and your team back. The identity shift from expert to leader Leadership is often misunderstood as an extension of expertise, but it is a fundamentally different role. Many leaders don’t struggle because they lack skill, intelligence, or commitment, they struggle because the expectations of the role changed, and no one explicitly helped them change with it. As an individual contributor, success is measured by how effectively you solve problems and deliver results. As a leader, success is measured by how well others grow, think, and perform without relying on you. Yet many leaders carry their expert identity forward, continuing to provide answers because it feels efficient, helpful, and responsible. However, leadership is not about being the smartest person in the room, it is about creating a room full of capable thinkers. Why do leaders default to telling instead of asking? If no one ever taught us how to lead through inquiry, self awareness, and curiosity, telling naturally becomes the default. Many leaders are rewarded early in their careers for being fast, decisive, and solution oriented. Over time, those strengths become habits, and those habits turn into a pattern of stepping in and solving. There’s also a deeper layer at play. For many leaders, telling is tied to unconscious needs, the need to be right, to be needed, to be the problem solver, or to be the smartest person in the room. These needs aren’t wrong, but when they quietly drive behaviour, they can keep leaders stuck in a cycle of over functioning that limits the growth of others. What is the cost of always having the answers? At first, providing answers feels efficient and supportive. But over time, the impact starts to shift. When leaders consistently tell others what to do, they unintentionally become the bottleneck, the person every decision must move through. As this pattern continues, teams begin to rely more heavily on the leader instead of building their own confidence and judgement. Individuals miss the opportunity to think critically, make decisions, and develop their own voice. The irony is that the more a leader tells, the more they believe they must keep telling because no one else has been developed to carry the weight. What looks like help on the surface slowly creates dependency underneath. How does asking build stronger, more capable teams? If telling creates dependency, then asking is what builds agency. When leaders shift from providing answers to asking questions, responsibility for thinking, deciding, and learning moves back to the individual, where it belongs. Asking encourages ownership. It invites critical thinking, creativity, and perspective. These things quickly disappear when leaders jump in with solutions. Growth doesn’t happen when answers are handed down, it happens when people are challenged to think, reflect, and choose. Over time, this builds confidence, capability, and trust. Teams become more engaged, more independent, and more willing to step forward with ideas and solutions. Why is it so hard to stop giving answers? Understanding the value of asking is one thing, doing it in real time is another. The instinct to jump in tends to show up in predictable moments, when someone brings a problem, when time feels tight, or when the answer feels obvious. In those moments, telling feels faster and more efficient. In reality, the goal is twofold, to empower the other person while also protecting yourself from becoming the default fixer. Simple questions like “What do you think?” or “What options are you considering?” help keep ownership where it belongs. Questions create just enough space for others to step forward. This skill extends beyond work as well. In personal relationships, asking before advising can prevent unnecessary tension. When you pause to understand whether someone needs support or simply wants to be heard, trust deepens, and communication improves. Replacing reflexive answers with thoughtful questions is a small shift that has a lasting impact. A simple way to start: The 1-3-1 method When you slow down enough to ask questions instead of telling answers, the goal is to ask in a way that builds confidence instead of frustration. That’s where the 1-3-1 method comes in. It’s a simple structure that keeps work moving forward while reinforcing ownership, accountability, and development. Start with one clear problem When someone comes to you with an issue, begin by asking them to define one clear problem. You do not want a long explanation or a list of frustrations, just one specific challenge they are trying to solve. This step alone creates clarity. When people articulate the real problem, they often begin to see it more clearly themselves. In many cases, they are already halfway to a solution. Ask for three possible options Once the problem is clear, ask them to identify three possible options. Three is important because one option is typically a complaint, and two options create a dilemma, while three options require real thinking. This shifts the conversation from “I’m stuck” to “I can generate possibilities,” strengthening problem solving skills and expanding perspective. Have them make one recommendation Finally, ask them to choose one recommendation. This is where ownership fully shifts. They are weighing tradeoffs, making a decision, and standing behind their thinking. Instead of relying on you to decide, they begin to build confidence in their own judgement. Let the team do the thinking As a leader, your role is not to jump in with the answer, but to stay curious. Ask follow up questions that refine thinking, challenge assumptions, and deepen clarity. Over time, something important changes. You are no longer the bottleneck. Your team becomes more capable, confident, and independent, and they begin to take the lead in solving their own challenges. Make the shift from telling to asking The shift isn’t complicated, but it does require intention. The next time someone brings you a problem, pause before you answer. Instead, ask a question that keeps the thinking with them. It may feel slower in the moment, but over time, it changes how your team shows up and how much you’re carrying. Remember, leadership isn’t measured by how quickly you solve problems, it’s measured by how well your team can think without you. If you’re ready to lead this way and build more sustainable results for yourself and your team, book a coaching call today. Let’s build the awareness and capacity to lead with clarity and confidence. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jaime Waterfield Jaime Waterfield, Leadership Development Coach Jaime Waterfield is a Leadership Development Coach with more than 25 years of experience in technology, software, and services organizations. Having worked across nearly all functions of the business, she brings a rare, end‑to‑end perspective to leadership development. Her work focuses on helping leaders build sustainable leadership capability that aligns people, performance, and business outcomes. Through AspiHER, her signature women’s leadership program, she supports women navigating growth, promotion, or expanded leadership responsibility to gain clarity, set sustainable boundaries, and lead with confidence without burning out or losing momentum.

Written by Christian Dounis, Psychotherapist | Hypnotherapist | Counsellor As the founder of the Strategic Mindset & Wellness Clinic, Christian supports children, teens, and adults through warm, creative, and evidence-based therapeutic approaches. There was a time when childhood was more strongly associated with play, imagination, boredom, curiosity, scraped knees, and emotional recovery that happened naturally through movement, connection, and downtime. Today, many children are emotionally exhausted before they even enter high school. As a psychotherapist, counsellor, hypnotherapist, and strategic coach working closely with children, teens, and families, I am seeing increasing numbers of young people presenting with emotional overwhelm, shutdown, perfectionism, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, school stress, sleep difficulties, social exhaustion, and nervous system overload at younger and younger ages. Many parents are understandably confused, often asking, “How can my child already be this stressed?”, “They’re only ten,” “They used to be carefree,” “They cry over everything now,” and “They can’t switch off.” What we are witnessing is not simply “bad behaviour,” weakness, laziness, or oversensitivity. Many children are operating with overloaded nervous systems in environments that rarely slow down long enough for recovery. Children are absorbing more than ever before Children today are exposed to an extraordinary amount of stimulation. Busy classrooms are filled with constant movement, sound, conversation, alarms, bells, and competing demands for attention. At the same time, screens such as tablets, phones, gaming systems, YouTube, and social media deliver rapid fire digital content that keeps the brain constantly engaged and alert. Notifications, including messages, alerts, updates, and digital interruptions, train the nervous system to remain in a heightened state of anticipation. Schedules are often packed, with many children moving from school to tutoring, sport, activities, homework, and social commitments, with little genuine recovery time. There is also increasing performance pressure, with a growing belief that children must constantly achieve, improve, compete, and succeed academically, socially, and emotionally. Social comparison begins earlier than ever, with children comparing friendships, appearance, popularity, intelligence, sporting ability, and social status. Academic expectations add another layer, with pressure to perform well on assessments, stay organised, achieve goals, and “keep up.” Children also absorb emotional contagion from peers, taking in the stress, anxiety, emotional intensity, and social tensions of those around them. Online culture exposes them to unrealistic standards, constant comparison, overstimulation, and the pressure to present a certain image. At the same time, adult stress plays a role, as children are highly perceptive and often absorb emotional tension from overwhelmed or emotionally exhausted adults. All of this is combined with constant activity, leaving very little opportunity for boredom, imagination, quiet reflection, or nervous system stillness. Their brains and nervous systems are still developing, yet many are functioning in environments that resemble chronic activation rather than healthy emotional growth. Even highly capable children are struggling to regulate themselves under this pressure. What is particularly important to understand is that emotional exhaustion in children does not always look like sadness. Sometimes it presents as irritability, emotional explosions, shutting down, refusing school, perfectionism, overthinking, headaches or stomach aches, lack of motivation, heightened sensitivity, avoidance, anger, clinginess, constant reassurance seeking, “zoning out,” or withdrawal into devices. Often, these behaviours are signs of nervous system overload rather than defiance. The rise of the “always on” child Many children today rarely experience genuine mental rest. Their days are often highly structured, moving from school to tutoring, sport, extracurricular activities, homework, devices, social communication, gaming, online interaction, and ongoing performance expectations. Even downtime is frequently overstimulating. A child may appear to be “relaxing” while scrolling endlessly, gaming for hours, or switching rapidly between apps and videos, yet the nervous system may still remain activated rather than restored. The nervous system was never designed to remain in a constant state of alertness and input. When children do not regularly experience emotional decompression, their stress response systems can begin operating as though pressure is permanent. Eventually, the child’s window of tolerance narrows, and small setbacks begin to feel enormous. A friendship issue at recess can feel emotionally devastating for an entire evening, while minor social challenges may feel catastrophic. A misunderstood comment, exclusion from a group chat, or feeling ignored can trigger intense distress and self doubt. Normal discomfort becomes overwhelming, and challenges that are part of healthy development may suddenly feel unbearable because the nervous system has little remaining capacity. This is why many children appear emotionally reactive over situations adults may perceive as “small.” To the child’s nervous system, the system is already overloaded before the event even occurs. Perfectionism is quietly exhausting children One of the biggest hidden contributors to emotional exhaustion is perfectionism. Many children now feel enormous pressure to achieve academically, fit in socially, say the right thing, perform well in sport, avoid mistakes, maintain friendships, appear confident, and keep up with others. Some children become terrified of getting things wrong. They overanalyse, thinking repeatedly about conversations, decisions, schoolwork, and social interactions long after the moment has passed. They overprepare, spending excessive time trying to ensure everything is “perfect” before taking action. They may avoid trying altogether, refusing to attempt things unless they feel guaranteed success, often out of fear of embarrassment or failure. They may cry over mistakes, experiencing deep emotional distress over relatively minor errors because mistakes feel tied to self-worth. They may also seek constant reassurance, repeatedly asking adults if they are okay, if they did something wrong, or if things will work out. Others silently internalise pressure and appear “fine” while carrying immense anxiety internally. Perfectionism often creates children who look capable externally but feel emotionally unsafe internally. The problem is that perfectionism teaches children that self-worth becomes conditional, such as “I am good when I succeed.” “I am safe when I perform.” “I am accepted when I don’t fail.” This creates exhaustion because the nervous system never fully relaxes. Social comparison starts earlier than ever Many children are developing self-consciousness far earlier than previous generations. They compare appearance, friendships, achievements, popularity, possessions, sporting ability, intelligence, and social status. Even primary school children are increasingly worried about what others think of them. Social comparison creates hypervigilance. Children begin monitoring themselves constantly, asking, “Did I say something stupid?”, “Do they like me?”, “What if they judge me?”, and “What if I embarrass myself?” Over time, this can create chronic emotional tension and identity insecurity. Children stop experiencing life freely and begin performing life instead. Emotionally exhausted children often need regulation before reasoning One of the biggest mistakes adults make is trying to reason with a dysregulated child before helping the nervous system settle. When children are emotionally flooded, the thinking brain becomes less accessible. This is why logic alone often fails in emotionally heightened moments. Children first need emotional safety, co-regulation, calm presence, grounding, predictability, and nervous system settling. Only then can reflection, learning, and problem-solving occur effectively. This does not mean removing boundaries or avoiding accountability. It means understanding that regulation creates the foundation for emotional growth. What children need more of Many children do not necessarily need more pressure, more correction, more stimulation, or more achievement. They often need more emotional safety, more connection, more unstructured play, more recovery time, more nervous system regulation, more permission to make mistakes, more opportunities to build resilience gradually, and more adults who remain calm during emotional storms. Children also benefit enormously from learning emotional regulation skills directly. Breathing strategies, grounding, mindfulness, movement, creative expression, visualisation, emotional labelling, strategic coping tools, and reflective conversations can help children develop emotional awareness and resilience over time. Importantly, children do not learn regulation primarily through lectures. They learn it through repeated emotional experiences. We need to stop treating childhood like a performance Many emotionally exhausted children are not failing. In many cases, they are adapting to environments that have become emotionally intense, overstimulating, fast paced, and highly performance driven. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can give a child is not more pressure to “toughen up,” but the emotional conditions that allow their nervous system to feel safe enough to grow. Because children who feel emotionally safe are often far more capable of developing confidence, resilience, creativity, emotional intelligence, and genuine strength. Perhaps one of the most important questions adults can begin asking is not, “How do we make children perform more?” but rather, “How do we help children feel emotionally well enough to thrive?” Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Christian Dounis Christian Dounis, Psychotherapist | Hypnotherapist | Counsellor Christian is known for blending strategic psychotherapy, hypnosis, EMDR, and neuroscience-informed techniques to help clients understand their patterns, regulate their emotions, and build long-term resilience. Christian has a particular passion for supporting adolescents as they navigate identity, anxiety, and the pressures of modern life, and he strives to make therapy engaging, empowering, and genuinely transformative.

Written by Christopher A. Smith, Author & Digital Safety Advocate Christopher Smith is an award-winning author and entrepreneur dedicated to protecting people from cybercrime. After being the target of a major cyberattack, he founded DFend, a digital safety platform, and wrote Privacy Pandemic, inspired by his real-life story. Across governments, multilateral institutions, and development banks, digital public infrastructure is beginning to move from a governance aspiration into budgeted implementation. The shift is uneven and slower than many had hoped, but it is now sufficiently visible to warrant closer examination of the financing and governance choices. The early architecture is becoming clearer, identity systems, payment rails, data exchanges, and the coordination mechanisms that tie them together. The 50-in-5 signal In 2023, eleven countries committed to a coordinated campaign to design, launch, and scale components of digital public infrastructure within five years. The 50-in-5 initiative, organized in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme, the Gates Foundation, Co-Develop, and the Digital Public Goods Alliance, moved what had largely been an aspirational governance conversation into a measurable implementation agenda. As of 2026, more than 33 countries have joined, including Brazil, Estonia, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, Ukraine, and Zambia. This signals a real shift in the global conversation. The debate is no longer whether digital public infrastructure matters, it is about how it is financed, governed, and integrated into systems that deliver public value. What is actually being built Digital public infrastructure refers to shared foundational systems, such as digital identity, payment rails, and data exchange platforms, that enable governments, businesses, and citizens to interact securely at scale. Think of it less as a product and more as connective tissue beneath digital services. The UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose's first comprehensive global mapping of DPI systems documents what exists as of 2025, 64 national digital identity programs, 97 digital payment systems, and 103 data exchange platforms with infrastructure-like potential across 210 countries. The numbers are meaningful, but the systems remain uneven. Only about half of national identity systems are used by more than two public services. In many countries, payment rails, data exchanges, and identity layers still operate in parallel rather than as connected infrastructure. The IMF's March 2026 Finance and Development analysis clearly identified the central problem, countries are increasingly investing in DPI, but many still neither govern nor finance it as infrastructure. A digital ID database alone is not infrastructure. A payment rail alone is not infrastructure. A data exchange layer alone is not infrastructure. These systems create infrastructure value only when they are connected, interoperable, and financed for long-term operation. The interoperability gap Building the systems is the first challenge. Connecting them is the second, and the harder one. The early electrical grid offers the closest analogy. Individual generators existed across cities before standardization. The real economic value only emerged when engineers agreed on common voltage standards and began connecting isolated systems into a shared network. Digital public infrastructure sits in much the same place today. A February 2026 Wilton Park dialogue reached a striking conclusion, interoperability failures in DPI are more often institutional and political than technical. The systems can be built to communicate. The ministries, financing structures, and governance authorities that oversee them often cannot. Estonia has shown what connected public data exchange can look like. India and Brazil have shown the same on payments, each moving billions of transactions onto nationally interoperable rails. These systems matter not because they are digital products, but because they begin functioning like national utility layers. For the remaining 180-plus countries, the issue is no longer whether the technical building blocks exist. It is who finances the connective tissue required for them to operate as infrastructure. Who is financing it Three financing models are emerging. The first is government-as-public-utility. The UK committed £250 million over three years to national fraud defense infrastructure. Brazil built Pix through the Central Bank as a public good with mandatory interoperability. The second is multilateral co-financing. In February 2026, the World Bank approved $50 million for Nepal's digital public infrastructure, co-financed with the Asian Development Bank. The third is blended public-private capital. The 50-in-5 campaign operates through a coalition of UNDP, Gates Foundation, Co-Develop, multilateral development banks, and national governments, combining sovereign budgets, philanthropic capital, and development institutions to finance systems no single actor can fully underwrite. None of the three models is sufficient on its own. Together, they suggest a visible pattern, digital public infrastructure is no longer a governance aspiration, it is entering budget cycles. What could go right Countries that treat digital public infrastructure as connected infrastructure, rather than siloed projects, can generate compounding returns across the system. India’s Aadhaar identity layer helped reduce know-your-customer costs and expand financial inclusion, while Brazil’s Pix lowered transaction friction and brought millions of users onto interoperable payment rails. Each layer enabled the next. This is what infrastructure does when financed and governed correctly. It stops being a single-purpose deployment and becomes a multiplier across sectors, reducing administrative friction, lowering costs, and increasing access. The upside is not simply digitization. It is the creation of shared systems that make public and private services function more efficiently over time. What could go wrong Early digital public infrastructure deployments are already showing how quickly technically functional systems can fail when governance, inclusion, trust, and financing are poorly designed. In multiple countries, identity verification failures have limited access to health and social services. At the same time, digital payment systems have struggled to gain adoption when privacy concerns and usability undermine public confidence. The lesson is straightforward, early design and governance decisions become increasingly difficult to reverse once they are embedded in legal frameworks, institutional practices, and technical architecture. Poorly governed DPI does not produce a grid. It produces exclusion, fragmentation, or private concentration at scale. Structural signal The broader pattern is moving from theory into implementation. Thirty-three countries have joined 50-in-5. National fraud architectures are operational. Multilateral banks are co-financing foundational systems. Identity, payment, and data exchange standards are increasingly portable. The technical building blocks now exist in enough places to make the next question unavoidable, "Can they be financed, governed, and connected as infrastructure rather than as isolated pilots?" What the numbers say 64 national digital identity programs, 97 digital payment systems, and 103 data exchange platforms were identified globally. 33+ countries have joined the 50-in-5 campaign to design, launch, and scale DPI by 2028. 21.7 billion UPI transactions were processed in India in January 2026 alone. $50 million approved by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank in February 2026 for Nepal's digital public infrastructure. $236 billion in improper U.S. federal payments recorded in FY2023, much of it linked to identity verification and documentation weaknesses. The economics of digital safety (opinion) The infrastructure emerging through 50-in-5, multilateral co-financing, and blended public-private capital is not yet a coordinated global system. It remains a collection of national and regional efforts operating at uneven levels of maturity. But many of the core technical building blocks now exist. The harder question is whether they can be financed, governed, and connected as infrastructure. The Wilton Park dialogue concluded that governance, not technology, is the primary constraint. IMF analysis reached a parallel conclusion, finance ministries, not digital ministries, hold the key to sustainable DPI because infrastructure requires budget authority, cross-government coordination power, and multiyear planning. The next phase is less a technical contest than a financing and governance one. The question is whether digital public infrastructure will be financed as connected, interoperable, long-horizon public defense infrastructure, or become thirty-three variations of the same siloed, underfunded pilot project. One model produces a grid. The other produces a costly collection of disconnected pilots. The financing decision is a governance decision, and it is being made right now. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Christopher A. Smith Christopher A. Smith, Author & Digital Safety Advocate Christopher Smith is the award-winning author of Privacy Pandemic and the founder of DFend, a digital safety platform built to protect people from cybercrime. After being the target of a major cyberattack, he transformed his story of loss into one of purpose, turning a personal crisis into a global mission. His experience inspired him to develop technology that helps individuals safeguard their identity and privacy in the age of AI. Through his work and writing, Chris advocates for greater awareness, protection, and resilience online. He believes the future of digital safety is personal, because the threat already is. References: UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. (2026). The Global DPI Landscape — Where We Stand in 2025. Read more Coyle, D., Eaves, D., & Vasconcellos, B. (2026). Digital Infrastructure. IMF Finance and Development, March 2026. Read more Wilton Park. (2026). Leveraging Digital Public Infrastructure for Sustainable Health System Transformation. Read more Datasphere Initiative. (2026). Sandboxes for DPI: Co-creating the Blocks of Digital Trust. Read more 50-in-5 Campaign. (2026). Implementing Digital Public Infrastructure, Safely and Inclusively. Read more World Bank. (2026). Nepal: World Bank Approves $50 Million Digital Transformation Project. Read more U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2024). Improper Payments: Federal Government Made $236 Billion in Improper Payments Last Fiscal Year. Read more Initiative for Social and Economic Rights & Unwanted Witness. (2021). Chased Away and Left to Die. Cited in Datasphere Initiative (2026). Read more International Monetary Fund. (2023). Nigeria's eNaira, One Year After. IMF Finance and Development. Read more Disclaimer: This article is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and reflects the author's analysis as of May 2026. It does not constitute legal, financial, investment, cybersecurity, or other professional advice. Readers should consult qualified professionals for advice specific to their circumstances. The content represents a synthesis of publicly available third-party data and the author's interpretation of systemic trends, it is not based on specialized professional expertise in any regulated field. While the author has made every effort to verify information against primary sources, including the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the 50-in-5 campaign, the Wilton Park dialogue, the Datasphere Initiative, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office, no representations are made regarding the ongoing accuracy or completeness of such third-party data. Market projections and structural assessments represent scenario analysis based on published data and institutional reporting. These should not be interpreted as predictions. Actual outcomes may differ materially based on technological, regulatory, and market developments. This article does not advocate for or endorse any specific product, service, organization, or policy position and does not target or assign liability to any individual company or organization.

Written by Dr. Nadia and Dr. Debora D'Iuso, Psychologists, Founders of Crosstown Psychology & Wellness Clinic Dr. Nadia D'Iuso and Dr. Debora D'Iuso are the co-founders and psychologists at Crosstown Psychology and Wellness Clinic. Their combined 25 years of experience as licensed psychologists and helping hundreds of clients have taught them one central truth-meaningful change starts with strong and trusting relationships. If a patient is seeking aesthetic medicine to improve self-worth, we may be addressing the wrong clinical target. I’m not anti-aesthetic medicine. For patients with appearance-based concerns, cosmetic interventions can be appropriate and beneficial. But in practice, the presenting request and the underlying need are not always the same. Patients often say: “I want to feel more confident.” “I want to stop fixating on how I look.” “I want to feel comfortable in my own skin.” These are not purely aesthetic goals. They are psychological ones. There is also a less discussed layer to consider. Facial expression is not just cosmetic, it plays a role in emotional processing and social perception. Some research suggests that reducing facial muscle activity may influence aspects of emotion recognition and perceptual processing. At the same time, improvements in self-esteem following treatment appear to be time-limited in some studies. For example, increases observed shortly after intervention may not be sustained at follow-up months later. This creates a clinical tension, we may be offering an intervention that improves appearance, while the patient’s primary distress relates to self-worth. My perspective as a psychotherapy provider. If the treatment goal is appearance, aesthetic medicine is appropriate. If the treatment goal is self-worth or distress, psychological intervention is often more effective Rather than viewing these domains separately, there is an opportunity for more integrated care. Clear, respectful referral pathways between aesthetic providers and mental health professionals would better serve this subset of patients. Because, in some cases, what presents as a cosmetic concern is better understood as an emotional one. What this means in practice For clinicians, this distinction is not about rejecting aesthetic treatment, but about refining assessment. A simple shift in consultation style can make a meaningful difference. What outcome is the patient truly seeking? Is the concern specific and localized, or more global and persistent? Has the patient experienced similar dissatisfaction before, even after previous changes? These questions can help identify whether the intervention aligns with the underlying need. For some patients, aesthetic treatment may provide relief and satisfaction. For others, it may offer only temporary reassurance, followed by the return of the same distress, often redirected toward a different feature. Without addressing the psychological component, the cycle can repeat. A more sustainable approach When aesthetic and psychological care work in parallel, outcomes tend to be more stable. Patients who feel supported in both how they look and how they relate to themselves are less likely to rely on repeated interventions to regulate self-worth. This is not about limiting access to aesthetic medicine. It is about ensuring that treatment is precise, ethical, and aligned with the patient’s long-term wellbeing. In some cases, the most appropriate next step is not another procedure, but a deeper conversation. Conclusion Aesthetic medicine has a clear and valuable place in modern healthcare. But confidence, self-worth, and emotional ease are not procedures, they are internal experiences shaped by deeper psychological processes. When we pause to differentiate between appearance-based goals and emotional needs, we are better positioned to offer care that truly helps. Because the most effective treatment is not always the most visible one, it is the one that addresses the real source of distress. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Dr. Nadia and Dr. Debora D'Iuso Dr. Nadia and Dr. Debora D'Iuso, Psychologists, Founders of Crosstown Psychology & Wellness Clinic Meet Dr. Nadia and Dr. Debora D'Iuso, sisters, psychologists, and founders of Crosstown Psychology and Wellness Clinic. As a sister team, we bring both professional expertise and a deep sense of empathy to our work. We believe effective therapy starts with genuine connection, care, and actionable strategies. Our mission? To offer compassionate, evidence-informed care that is deeply rooted in the therapeutic relationship. We know how important it is for clients to feel safe, seen, and supported in their journey.

Written by Janice Elsley, Leadership Expert, International Author, and Podcast Host Janice Elsley is a leadership strategist, author, and keynote speaker who helps CEOs and leaders elevate their impact. As founder of Harissa Business Partners, she blends neuroscience, change management, and human design to drive success. The CFO was halfway through the quarterly review when she stopped mid-sentence. "Wait. We spent how much on recruitment this quarter?" The number on the screen was higher than their entire training budget for the year, and it was the third quarter in a row where turnover costs had spiked. She looked at the HR director. "Where is this coming from?" The answer, when they finally traced it back, wasn't a single department or a bad manager. It was burnout. Quiet, chronic, expensive burnout that had been bleeding the business dry for two years while leadership focused on everything else. Most Australian executives will tell you they care about employee wellbeing and most of them mean it. But caring about something and investing in it properly are two very different things. Right now, burnout is costing Australian businesses $39 billion a year. That's not a typo. Thirty-nine billion. Absenteeism, presenteeism, high turnover, recruitment costs, and lost institutional knowledge—all of these add up and yet, formal wellbeing programs, the kind with structure, accountability, and real budgets, remain rare. The companies doing this well aren't being altruistic. They're being smart. Because the return on investment is hard to ignore once you actually look at it. The cost you're already paying (you just can't see it) Here's what most leaders don't realize, you're already spending money on employee wellbeing. You're just spending it in the most expensive way possible. Every time someone calls in sick because they're too burned out to function, that's a cost. Every time a high performer quits and you spend three months recruiting and onboarding their replacement, that's a cost. Every time your team is running on fumes and makes a decision that has to be fixed later, that's a cost. Research from Deloitte puts the cost of poor mental health in Australian workplaces at around $39 billion per year. That figure covers absenteeism, reduced productivity, and employee turnover. But here's the part that should make every CFO sit up, organizations that implement structured wellbeing programs report up to $4 returned for every $1 spent. Some report even higher. A 2023 review published by the National Mental Health Commission found that effective workplace mental health programs can generate savings of up to $22,000 per employee annually, accounting for reduced sick days, lower staff turnover, and productivity gains. That's not a soft benefit. That's a direct line to the P&L. I've seen this play out in real time. In one organization I worked with, we reduced employee turnover from 43% to 8% by addressing the root causes of burnout, not just offering surface-level perks. The financial impact was immediate. Recruitment costs dropped. Productivity stabilized. The team that had been in constant crisis mode for two years finally had the bandwidth to actually build something and it didn't require a massive budget. It required leadership to stop treating wellbeing as optional and start treating it as infrastructure. What 'structured' actually means (and why it matters) The problem isn't that companies don't try. Many do. They offer a gym subsidy here, an EAP (Employee Assistance Program) helpline there, maybe a mental health day once a year. These things aren't bad. But they're not a strategy. A structured wellbeing program is different. It has clear goals tied to business outcomes. It measures participation and impact. It addresses the actual causes of stress, not just the symptoms. And leadership is involved, visibly and consistently, not just via an email from HR. The distinction matters because surface-level wellness initiatives rarely move the needle on burnout or turnover. People can tell when it's performative. They can tell when the company offers yoga classes but still expects them to answer emails at 10 p.m. They can tell when "we care about your wellbeing" is a poster on the wall, not a lived reality and when they can tell, they leave. Or worse, they stay and quietly disengage. Burnout is a P&L problem, not just an HR one Burnout doesn't just make people tired. It reduces decision-making quality, increases errors, kills creativity, and often precedes resignation. The average cost to replace an employee in Australia ranges from 50% to 200% of their annual salary, depending on seniority and role. When you factor in lost productivity during the vacancy, the time managers spend recruiting and training, and the institutional knowledge that walks out the door, the costs are significant. Burnout is one of the biggest drivers of that cycle. Leaders who treat wellbeing as optional are, in effect, choosing to absorb those costs silently. They just don't see it itemized on a spreadsheet. But it's there. In the recruitment line. In the sick leave budget. In the productivity gaps that never quite get explained. In the high performer who left for a competitor and took three major client relationships with them. Why Australian leaders keep putting this off There are a few reasons this keeps getting deprioritized. Wellbeing investments often have a delayed payoff, which makes them hard to justify in a quarterly reporting cycle. The benefits are also spread across HR, operations, and finance, so no single department owns the outcome. There's also a cultural piece. Australian workplace culture has historically rewarded toughness and long hours. Talking about burnout or mental load can still feel uncomfortable in some organizations, especially at the leadership level. I've sat in boardrooms where the conversation about wellbeing gets shut down with, "We can't afford to go soft right now." Every time, I think, you can't afford not to. Because the cost of going hard without recovery is already showing up. You're just calling it something else. But the companies that have gotten past that discomfort are reporting real results. Not in the form of happier-sounding survey responses, but in retention rates, sick day data, and productivity metrics. What actually works Programs that deliver results tend to share a few things in common. They're not opt-in wellness perks, they're built into how work is structured. Leadership models healthy behavior. When managers take leave, work reasonable hours, and talk openly about workload, it sets a norm. No wellbeing policy works if leadership behavior contradicts it. I've watched entire teams shift their relationship with work because one senior leader started leaving at 5 p.m. twice a week and talking about why. Workload is measured and managed. A lot of burnout comes from chronic overload, not a single bad week. Organizations that track workload distribution and act on the data prevent the problem rather than treating it after the fact. Psychological safety is real, not posted on a wall. People need to be able to say when they're struggling without worrying about career consequences. That takes consistent behavior from managers over time, not a values statement. EAP is promoted actively, not just listed in the induction pack. Utilization rates for many Australian EAP programs are embarrassingly low. If people don't know it's there or don't trust it, it's not a benefit. Progress is measured. Wellbeing programs that aren't tracked don't improve. Simple metrics like absenteeism rates, turnover, engagement scores, and EAP utilization give you enough to know if something is working. The question leaders need to ask The reason most organizations stay stuck is that wellbeing gets framed as a cost. It's not. The cost is already there. It's just invisible. Every organization is already paying for poor wellbeing. They're paying it through sick leave, hiring cycles, and the slow drag of disengaged staff who are physically present but mentally gone. The question isn't whether to spend money on this. It's whether to spend it proactively on programs that work, or reactively on damage control. The leaders who figure this out early tend to end up with better talent, lower churn, and teams that can actually sustain high performance without burning out. The ones who keep treating wellbeing as optional keep wondering why retention is hard and productivity is inconsistent. Where to start You don't need a massive program to start getting returns. A few practical first steps: Audit what you're already spending on absenteeism, turnover, and EAP claims. Most leaders are shocked when they actually see this number. Add up your recruitment costs for the last 12 months. Add your sick leave costs. Add the productivity loss from vacancies. That's your baseline. That's what you're already paying. Talk to your managers, not just HR. They're seeing burnout up close and usually have ideas about root causes. Ask them, "Who on your team is at risk? What's driving it? What would actually help?" Pick one structural change to make, not a new perk to offer. Reducing meeting load, setting clearer priorities, or normalizing recovery time will do more than a free yoga class. Make it something that changes how work happens, not something people do in addition to work. Set a 12-month target. Tie wellbeing metrics to business outcomes. Absenteeism down 10%. Turnover reduced by one or two people this year. Make it concrete. Make it measurable. Make someone accountable for it. The bottom line The data has been clear for a while. Structured wellbeing investment pays off—up to $4 for every $1 spent. Up to $22,000 saved per employee per year. Reduced turnover. Higher productivity. Better decision-making. The companies doing it well aren't doing it because it's trendy. They're doing it because it works. Because they've done the math and realized that the cost of not investing is higher than the cost of getting it right. The question is how many more expensive years it takes before the rest catch on. How many more high performers have to walk out the door? How many more recruitment cycles do you want to fund? How much more productivity are you willing to lose to presenteeism and disengagement? Because the cost is already there. You're already paying it. The only question is whether you're going to keep paying it the expensive way, or whether you're ready to invest in something that actually works. If you're ready to stop hemorrhaging money on burnout and start building a team that can sustain high performance without burning out, let's talk. I work with leaders and organizations who are done with surface-level wellness programs and ready to build something that actually moves the needle. Real structure. Real measurement. Real results. Join the free School of Leadership community, where we're breaking down exactly how to build wellbeing into your leadership strategy without the fluff. Practical tools, real case studies, and a community of leaders who are doing this work in real time. Join the School of Leadership here (it's free, and you'll get access to frameworks, live sessions, and the kind of straight-talk business case your CFO will actually listen to). Or if you want to talk about what this looks like for your specific organization, reach out. Let's turn that $39 billion problem into a $4-for-$1 opportunity. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Janice Elsley Janice Elsley, Leadership Expert, International Author, and Podcast Host Janice Elsley is a leadership expert, author, and keynote speaker helping CEOs and executives future-proof their leadership with neuroscience-driven strategies. As founder of Harissa Business Partners, she drives performance, inclusivity, and talent retention. Her book Leadership Legacy and programs, Leading Edge Women, The Leading Edge, and First 100 Days of Leadership, equip leaders with the confidence and strategies to make an impact. Whether coaching executives or delivering transformational keynotes, Janice creates real results.