Franz / field notes
Notice what your week is telling you.
Short, research-backed notes for people who want a clearer view of stress, sleep, mood and work, without turning their life into a spreadsheet.
The useful signal is rarely in one day.
All field notes
Filter by topic or search. Every note cites its sources and ends with something you can try this week.
16 notes
How long does burnout recovery actually take?
Weeks for a rough patch, months for the real thing, longer if nothing about the work changes. What decides the timeline, and what shortens it.
Why 'just relax' never works, and what does
Telling an anxious person to relax can make them more anxious, and there is a name for it. What to do instead of trying to feel calm on command.
The stress-sleep loop: how bad sleep fuels bad days
Stress shortens sleep; short sleep makes the next day's stress land harder. The loop runs both ways, which means it can be interrupted from either side.
Why you only notice stress when it's too late
Self-reported stress and the body's stress response barely correlate. That gap is why the crash surprises people, and it is closable.
Exercise for stress: how much, how hard, how soon it works
The largest review to date found movement compares well with therapy and medication for mild to moderate symptoms. The useful part is how little it takes.
Burnout at work: is it the job or you?
Burnout research points at six mismatches between a person and a job. Run through them and the answer is usually clearer than the question suggests.
How to sleep when your brain won't switch off
The techniques sleep clinics actually use for a racing mind: a worry window, getting out of bed, and a wind-down that starts earlier than you think.
The five stress signals worth tracking every day
You do not need twenty metrics. Five signals, each observable in seconds, cover most of what stress does to a body and a week.
Why we avoid dealing with stress, and what works instead
Avoidance works, briefly. That is exactly the problem. The research on experiential avoidance and the small approach moves that replace it.
Stress vs burnout: the difference, and why it matters
Stress is too much. Burnout is not enough. They feel related but ask for opposite responses, and treating one like the other is how people stay stuck.
Why do I feel anxious at night?
The day runs out of distractions, the body runs out of daylight, and worry gets the room to itself. Why anxiety peaks at bedtime and how to break the loop.
Cortisol, explained: what your stress hormone actually does
It rises before you wake, falls through the day, and is not the villain it is sold as. What 'high cortisol' really means, and what you can and cannot measure.
Keep a thread on your week.
Franz remembers the context between check-ins, so you can spend less time reconstructing the week and more time acting on it.