The Bright Side of Running on Empty: What Actually Restores a Nervous System
It was a Saturday. I had spent the entire week as the primary parent at home with a 5-year-old (neurodivergent, and battling a cold on top of it) and a 1.5-year-old. By the time the weekend came, I wanted one thing: to disappear. To take my turn.
So I did. I sat on the couch and I could not put my book down. I was barely tracking the kids. My husband was being wonderful, absorbing the meltdowns and the ordinary chaos while I checked out. And I'll be honest — I probably looked like a lazy parent to anyone watching. That thought sat with me. But so did a few others, and those turned out to be the ones worth keeping.
Reframe #1: "Taking my turn to escape" was quietly making me miserable.
I had built a whole mental economy around getting away. If I could just get my turn — the bath, the book, the solo trip to Target — then I'd be okay. But chasing that escape didn't refill me. It made me resentful. It made me feel entitled to more of it. And it made me completely unable to enjoy the moment I was actually in, because I was always mentally somewhere else, waiting for my "off" shift to start.
Rest matters. But rest built entirely around leaving isn't the same as rest that restores. And I had confused the two for years.
Reframe #2: If a bath doesn't reset me, why do I expect my kids to bounce back so fast?
Here's the thought that stopped me. A bath, a good book, a quiet errand — none of those fully restored my nervous system after a hard week. Not even close. So why had I been quietly expecting my 5-year-old to reset in minutes after a big event, a full day of school, a disappointment, an unexpected change of plans, or being sick?
There's real science under this. Children — especially neurodivergent children — don't regulate their nervous systems alone. They do it with us, in a process researchers call co-regulation, and it works both moment-to-moment and slowly over months and years (Northrup et al., 2026). Studies of children on the autism spectrum even show that supportive, attuned parenting is linked to healthier patterns in the child's underlying physiology, not just their outward behavior (Moffitt et al., 2021). Recovery is a shared, gradual process. If mine takes longer than a hot bath, theirs will too — and that's not a failure. That's a nervous system working exactly as it's built to.
Reframe #3: What actually restored me wasn't the escape. It was the opposite.
When I paid honest attention, the things that genuinely brought my nervous system down weren't the solo escapes. They were:
Leaning into family activity — even five minutes of the same princess game for the fortieth time. Especially that, actually.
Real connection — social time with people I love, not just proximity to them.
Movement that gets my heart rate up — a walk helps, but honestly it's often not enough on its own.
Being outside — different sounds, different smells, different light. New input for a tapped-out system.
This tracks with what the research keeps finding. Social connection is one of the most powerful buffers we have against stress — the felt presence of people we trust literally dampens the body's stress response (Delgado et al., 2023). Families who lean into shared activities and stay connected to their people report less stress and more resilience (Whaley & Pfefferbaum, 2023). And when researchers ask neurodivergent young people themselves what helps, they don't describe escape — they describe being validated, feeling connected to trusted others, moving their bodies, and having their feelings treated as legitimate (Pavlopoulou et al., 2025). Turns out my kids and I need remarkably similar things.
The Bright Side
The bright side of running on empty is what it taught me on the way down: the goal was never to get away from my family so I could feel like myself again. Connection is the thing that restores me. My kids aren't the drain on my nervous system that I sometimes framed them as — they're often part of what refills it. That doesn't mean I stop needing breaks. It means I stopped believing that leaving was the only thing that could help.
Actionable ways to reframe the chaos and bring the nervous system down
None of these require a spa day or a free afternoon. They're small, they're doable in the middle of a hard moment, and they're built on what actually moves the needle.
Co-regulate before you correct. When your child is dysregulated, your calm body is the intervention. Lower your voice, slow down, get on their level. You're not "giving in" — you're lending them a regulated nervous system until theirs catches up (Northrup et al., 2026).
Extend your kid the same timeline you'd give yourself. Before expecting a fast recovery, ask: would a bath fix this for me right now? If not, drop the stopwatch. Give the reset the hours (or the day) it actually needs.
Trade five minutes of escape for five minutes of connection. When you have a small pocket of energy, try pouring it into a shared moment — the princess game, a silly dance, a snuggle — instead of away from it. It often refills more than the scroll or the solo errand does.
Move your body, ideally outside. A brisk walk, and when you can, one with real sensory change — wind, birds, sunlight, cold air. Physical activity and outdoor stimulation are consistently recommended for downshifting stress arousal (Whaley & Pfefferbaum, 2023).
Reappraise instead of escape. Naming a hard moment as "my nervous system is maxed out, and that's information, not failure" is a form of positive reappraisal — and it's linked to better adjustment and resilience in parents, while avoidance-based coping tends to backfire (Md Salim et al., 2026).
Protect real connection, not just alone time. Text the friend. Take the call. Say yes to the people who fill you. Social connection is one of the most reliable stress buffers we have (Delgado et al., 2023).
Let your partner be your partner — and say thank you. On my Saturday, my husband handling the hard stuff wasn't me failing; it was co-regulation working at the family level. Supportive partnership is one of the strongest protective factors for parent resilience (Md Salim et al., 2026). Tag-teaming isn't quitting. It's the system doing its job.
Be as kind to yourself as you're trying to be to your kids. Self-compassion and mindfulness-based approaches have some of the strongest evidence for lowering parenting stress (Mo et al., 2024). You're allowed to be a person who needed to put the book down. That doesn't make you lazy. It makes you human — and human is exactly what your kids need from you.
Warmly,
Kandice Benallie, PhD
Founder & Psychologist
Bright Futures Neurodevelopment
References
Delgado, M. R., Fareri, D. S., & Chang, L. J. (2023). Characterizing the mechanisms of social connection. Neuron.
Md Salim, N. S., Idris, I. B., Nor, N. K., et al. (2026). Factors associated with resilience among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review. PLoS One.
Mo, S., Bu, F., Bao, S., & Yu, Z. (2024). Comparison of effects of interventions to promote the mental health of parents of children with autism: A systematic review and network meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review.
Moffitt, J. M., Baker, J. K., Fenning, R. M., et al. (2021). Parental socialization of emotion and psychophysiological arousal patterns in children with autism spectrum disorder. Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology.
Northrup, J. B., Nuske, H. J., Hipwell, A. E., & Mazefsky, C. A. (2026). Review and developmental model: Early childhood emotion regulation and co-regulation in autism. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Pavlopoulou, G., Chandler, S., Lukito, S., et al. (2025). Situating emotion regulation in autism and ADHD through neurodivergent adolescents' perspectives. Scientific Reports.
Sohmaran, C., & Shorey, S. (2019). Psychological interventions in reducing stress, depression and anxiety among parents of children and adolescents with developmental disabilities: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Advanced Nursing.
Tejakum, W., Truesdale, M., Melville, C., & Cairns, D. (2025). What are the factors that can challenge and promote resilience in parents of children with intellectual disabilities? A systematic review. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities.
Tian, X., Qian, W., Zhang, J., et al. (2026). An evidence-informed psychosocial intervention program for caregiver burden among family caregivers of children with autism spectrum disorder: A multi-stage development and Delphi study. PLoS One.
Whaley, G. L., & Pfefferbaum, B. (2023). Parental challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic: Psychological outcomes and risk and protective factors. Current Psychiatry Reports.
