Map how your symptoms change through the cycle of behaviour and reaction
The following behaviours are often associated with states of stress and burnout. They emerge when physical or mental discomfort reaches a level that feels intolerable. These behaviours serve a purpose—they attempt to reduce or stabilise the discomfort. What happens next—how you react to having engaged in the behaviour—also affects your symptoms.
The goal is to become more aware of these connections—not to force a change at this stage. Simply observing the pattern between your discomfort, behaviours, and reactions is valuable in itself.
After completing this exercise, it may be helpful to discuss your tolerance threshold (symptoms boundary) and results with your mental health professional.
Discomfort can become subconsciously normalised when it is frequent and sustained over time. You may not consciously register how much you're suffering—but your instinct to address it remains active. The behaviours you engage in are a manifestation of this.
According to MBT: The extent and frequency of these behaviours reflects how unhealthy your tolerance threshold for discomfort has become. As soon as you shift that threshold to a healthier one, the behaviours gradually fade away.
The following behaviours are commonly associated with stress and burnout. Choose one you've engaged in recently that you'd like to explore. We'll trace what happened to your symptoms before, during, and after.
What symptoms were you experiencing leading up to the behaviour?
Tick all symptoms you were experiencing and rate their severity (1=mild, 2=moderate, 3=severe). This helps identify the level of discomfort that preceded the behaviour.
What symptoms were you experiencing immediately after the behaviour?
Tick all symptoms present after engaging in the behaviour and rate their severity. Did symptoms reduce, stay the same, or increase?
After engaging in the behaviour, how did you react to yourself? What was your internal response to having behaved that way?
What symptoms were you experiencing after reacting to the behaviour?
Your reaction of the reaction may have affected your symptoms. Tick what you were experiencing and rate severity.
Shifting your tolerance threshold to a healthier level may feel risky. What fears come up for you when you consider addressing your discomfort earlier?
These fears often keep us trapped in unhealthy patterns. Recognising them is the first step to questioning whether they're actually true—or whether they're beliefs that developed to justify the status quo.
Mapping how discomfort changed through the cycle
When discomfort is frequent and sustained, it can become subconsciously normalised. You may not fully register how much you're suffering—but your instinct to address it remains. The behaviours you engage in are evidence that your system is trying to cope with levels of discomfort that may have become invisible to your conscious awareness.
Your symptoms tell a story about the connection between discomfort, behaviour, and reaction.
As soon as you shift your tolerance threshold to a healthier one—addressing discomfort earlier, before it builds to critical levels—the behaviours gradually fade away. They lose their purpose when the pressure that created them is addressed at its source.
The training is not to introduce something completely foreign. If you are not usually a neglectful person toward others, you only need to generalise already present skills to yourself.
How to tell if a threshold is healthy: Would you consider it appropriate for another person to use the same threshold? If you usually are not a neglectful person, your interpersonal threshold is healthy enough—you simply need to apply it to yourself.
The behaviour you engaged in emerged because your discomfort reached a level that demanded a response. The extent and frequency of these behaviours is a manifestation of how unhealthy your tolerance threshold for discomfort has become.
The fears you identified are worth examining. Often, these fears developed to justify a pattern that isn't serving you. Questioning them is part of the change process.
This exercise is for self-reflection and educational purposes only. If you are struggling with harmful behaviours, please seek support from a qualified healthcare professional.
The results and patterns identified here can be a useful starting point for discussions with your therapist or counsellor.