Tiny Experiments for Low-Capacity Seasons

Episode 180: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube
View transcript on Buzzsprout

You already know what would help. More sleep, more consistent meals, some movement, a little more support. Knowing has rarely been the problem. Every one of those changes asks for time, energy, and follow through, and a stressed nervous system is running short on all three.

After our capacity series wrapped, I heard from listeners in two very different places. Some of you loved the worksheets and brought them straight into therapy. Others wrote that you felt like a failure, because even the assessment felt like one more thing to fit into margins that barely exist. Both responses make sense to me, and the second one deserves its own conversation.

This episode offers a lower stakes path to the same place the capacity workbook was pointing toward: one small shift. It comes from a concept called tiny experiments, and it may be the most realistic way to start changing things when your system is tapped out.

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What We Cover in This Episode

• Why the support that could expand your capacity often requires capacity you don’t have yet
• How the push to optimize every habit can add to your stress load
• Tiny experiments: trading rigid goals for curiosity
• The PACT framework for turning a question into a small, doable commitment

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When Getting Support Takes Capacity You Don’t Have

Three conversations shaped this episode. Two were discovery calls with longtime listeners who had done a lot of this work on their own and reached the point of wanting more support. Both worked full time, both carried significant responsibilities outside of work, and both came in with the same worry.

One wrote on her intake form that she didn’t want to add something new to feel anxious about, and then feel anxious about trying not to feel anxious. The other, working full time with a young baby, asked how she was supposed to find extra hours in a day that already didn’t have enough of them.

Both were right that the basics matter. Sleep, food, water, movement, and connection are biological needs. And both were describing something I hear constantly: the very things that could expand your capacity require capacity to begin.

The third conversation was with a dear friend who is in a deep season of depression. She’s getting up, going to work, and keeping her kids fed and safe, while feeling numb and far away from the person she used to be. She has wanted to find a therapist for a long time. But which kind of therapist? How do you find a good one? What happens when you do all that work and the fit is wrong?

That loop is so common. Getting support often requires support. When that’s where you are, your one small shift might be asking someone to help you reach it. That’s how I found my current therapist. I asked a friend who had mentioned hers whether she’d share the contact info or ask for recommendations on my behalf.

This is also a big part of why I offer free discovery calls for RESTORE, our 1:1 program for anxiety and depression. Some people come in already knowing they want to work with us. Many come in unsure what they need at all. Either way, the call is pressure free, and my priority is that you leave clearer on your next step, whether that’s our program, a specific kind of therapist, or something else entirely.

Good Enough Is Allowed

Somewhere along the way, healing got tangled up with optimization. Track your macros. Perfect your sleep hygiene. Find the right supplements, the right breathwork, the right morning routine.

Humans were never meant to be optimized. When I catch myself spiraling about something like this, I picture what it would have looked like a hundred years ago. My great grandmother wasn’t sitting at the dinner table asking whether anyone had counted the macros. She ate dinner and got on with her life.

Her life also included things many of ours lack: more time outdoors, more movement woven into the day, more face to face connection, and almost no screens. So the basics still matter. What adds weight is the belief that every one of them has to be perfected.

A useful question to keep close: is this change lowering the load in my stress bucket, or adding to it in a new form? When eating healthier means stressing over every ingredient and feeling guilty when you slip, the extra nutrients may not outweigh the extra stress. Your system is far more adaptive than optimization culture gives it credit for, and finding what’s good enough for your current season is a skill worth building.

Inside RESTORE, much of the work is figuring out where to move the needle in small, realistic ways, especially in seasons of overwhelm. Sometimes that means smaller steps and a slower pace than you’d like, with someone beside you helping decide which step comes next.

Trading Goals for Curiosity

Back to my friend. In the middle of all that heaviness, she’s been trying something she picked up from an Instagram post. One afternoon, walking out of the school where she teaches, she thought: I wonder what would happen if I ran from the building to my car every day for two weeks.

That was the entire plan. She had no target distance and no ambition to become a runner. She was simply curious whether it would get easier, whether she’d start looking forward to it, whether she’d feel less winded keeping up with her kids at the park.

I traced the idea back to its source, a book called Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff. The premise is to approach change through curiosity and small, low stakes experiments in place of rigid, outcome focused goals.

Most of us learned a linear model. Set a goal, make a plan, execute, then succeed or fail. That model assumes you know what you want, have the resources to get there, and have the capacity to follow through. And when you don’t follow through, the usual response is criticism. You decide you’re lazy, unmotivated, or in need of more discipline.

Through a nervous system lens, this matters a lot. When your system is already depleted, a goal you might fail at registers as one more threat and one more chance to confirm the story that you can’t do this. My friend’s system can’t take that risk right now. A question, it can handle.

An experiment starts somewhere else. What am I curious about? What small thing could I try to learn more? Whatever happens becomes information. During anxiety, depression, burnout, or chronic stress, the distance between where you are and where you want to be can feel so large that even thinking about it is overwhelming. An experiment lets you set that whole distance down for a moment and look at one small thing.

Same Habit, Different Frame

Take sleep. A traditional goal might sound like this: My goal is to go to bed at 9:30 p.m. every night. It’s specific and measurable, which is what we’re taught a good goal should be. It’s also pass or fail, and it gets murky fast. You’re in bed by 9:30 and awake until 11:30. Does that count?

Goal: My goal is to go to bed at 9:30 p.m. every night.

Experiment: I wonder what would happen if I got in bed at 9:30 p.m. every night for two weeks.

Say both out loud and notice how each one lands in your body. Then run the experiment and reflect. What did you notice? Did it help? Was it harder or easier than you expected? Maybe it changed a lot. Maybe it changed nothing. Maybe you realized the way the rest of your day is structured makes 9:30 nearly impossible right now. Each of those answers tells you something real about your life.

Movement works the same way. I’m going to exercise for 10 minutes every day becomes I wonder what would happen if I moved for 10 minutes before breakfast for two weeks. You might love it. You might learn that mornings are too chaotic in this season. Whatever you learn shapes the next experiment you try.

Turning Curiosity Into a Small Commitment

Curiosity still needs a container, and Le Cunff offers one called PACT. The formula is simple: I will ___ for ___. A good tiny experiment is:

• Purposeful: it connects to something that matters to you.
• Actionable: you can actually do it with the capacity you have right now.
• Continuous: you repeat it over a defined stretch of time, like a week or two.
• Trackable: it’s simple enough that you know whether you did it.

Here’s how that could look coming out of the capacity series. Maybe your question is whether you need fewer obligations, more rest, or both. Your experiment could be: For the next four weeks, I will remove one optional commitment each week and see what I notice.

Or maybe you wonder whether asking for help earlier would change how overwhelmed you feel. Then your experiment becomes: For the next week, I will make one specific request for help each day.

In both cases, you commit to an action and leave the outcome open. That small difference creates a very different relationship with change.

Pick One, and Let It Be Light

Some of us can turn absolutely anything into a self improvement project. I’m including myself here. The moment I learned about tiny experiments, my mind started listing every area of life that could use one: parenting, physical health, work, asking for support.

Pick one. The whole point is to lower the ask.

Your experiment might even be about doing less. What happens when you pause before saying yes? When you rest before you feel like you’ve earned it? For many people, healing has become an endless search for the right combination of routine, breathwork, and supplements, with a belief underneath that the perfect formula is out there somewhere. That search can keep you stuck.

Experiments can also be playful. What brings you joy? What helps you feel connected? What makes your life feel a little more like yours? When my friend started running to her car, fixing her depression was nowhere in the plan. She had a light, curious thought and followed it. In a season where so much feels heavy, practicing that kind of curiosity matters.

Looking for a gentle place to start? Showing up to Release, my monthly live nervous system regulation class, could be your first tiny experiment: I wonder how I’d feel if I gave my body one guided class this month.

You don’t need five pages of worksheets to find your next step. A single question is enough to begin. I wonder what would help me sleep a little better. I wonder what would feel light this week. Choose one, give it a short window, and pay attention to what it shows you. Each experiment teaches you something about your own system, and that knowledge is what makes the next step clearer.

Three Tangible Takeaways

1. Lower the ask. The support that could help often requires capacity you don’t have yet. Look for one small shift you can make from curiosity, and leave the pass or fail mindset behind.
2. Trade the goal for a question. Start with “I wonder what would happen if,” commit to one small action for a set window like two weeks, and leave the outcome open.
3. Every result is information. Whether your experiment helps, changes nothing, or doesn’t fit your life right now, you’ve learned something about your system that can guide what you try next.

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Looking for more personalized support?

• Book a FREE discovery call for RESTORE, our 1:1 anxiety & depression program (HSA/FSA eligible & includes comprehensive bloodwork)
• Join me inside the Regulated Living Membership, a mental health membership and nervous system healing space (sliding scale pricing available)
• Join my Release Class, a monthly guided nervous system regulation class
• Order my book, Healing Through the Vagus Nerve, today!

*Want me to talk about something specific on the podcast? Let me know HERE.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or qualified mental health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.