Here's to 30-Something

Holding yourself together while you hold it down.

By The Self Care Snob ®

By our thirties, stress doesn’t necessarily arrive with sirens. It simmers in the margins; quiet but insistent. It looks like showing up to a call when your stomach’s empty. Saying “yes” one more time. Smiling when your body is pleading for rest.

It’s not dramatic. But it’s cumulative. And it lives in your bones before you ever see it in your calendar.

This isn’t the burn­out of your early twenties. It’s stealthy: managing a career, relationships, self-care, wounds that still ache. It’s the expectation to be graceful but never slack. To be healed and still hustling.

You carry grief too: Grief for the time you lost trying to prove you’re enough. Grief for all the small needs that got forgotten. Grief for how asking for help still feels like a risk.

You aren’t failing. You’re stretched. And perfection didn’t have space to hold you only demands.

When Resilience Demands All You Have to Give

In Canada, burnout is rising especially among women. A recent survey reported a 42% burnout rate among workers, with women more likely than men to report high stress. Over 70% of workers have considered quitting due to burnout or stress; and among them, women lead that exit impulse. Canadian HR Reporter

Meanwhile, in the United States, the burnout crisis shows a similar imprint. According to McKinsey & LeanIn’s Women in the Workplace report, 42% of U.S. women reported feeling burned out, compared to 35% of men, largely driven by “always-on” expectations and emotional labor.

In health care specifically, American studies show that female providers regularly report higher burnout rates with women in health professions enduring significantly more stress than their male counterparts. Pressured by long hours, emotional labor, and dual domestic roles. Even in leadership among nurses, female nurses report higher personal burnout scores than their male peers.

These warning signs remind us that women in their 30s, holding multiple roles and expectations, are statistically more likely to drift from “manageable stress” into a deep erosion of health, identity, and joy.

What Support Can Look Like (and What It Doesn’t Have to Be)

Support doesn’t always look like a wellness retreat or a 5-step morning routine. It looks like:

• Saying no without apology even to “easy” things.

• Being present in your care, even when it’s imperfect.

• Before the self-doubt spiral starts, give yourself a full meal. You might just need fuel not fixing.

• Canceling the thing. Full stop.

• Reorganizing your space because clutter is actually making your chest tight.

• Putting your hand on your chest, breathing deeply, and whispering: This is a lot. I’m still okay.

Support is presence, not perfection.

How I Manage It?

I keep care within reach. I don’t make it a spectacle.

Some days it’s lighting incense before I respond to emails. Some days it’s 24 hours of silence. Some days it’s moving my body slowly, just to remember I have one.

I plan less than I used to. I leave room. For feelings. For fatigue. For not always knowing what I need right away. I’ve learned that managing stress doesn’t mean avoiding it. It means listening early and responding honestly.

If You’re Reading This...

You’re not broken. You’re carrying more than you signed up for.

You don’t have to earn your rest. You don’t have to prove your worth through struggle. You don’t need to wait for disaster to slow down.

Stress may be inevitable but burnout isn’t. You are allowed rest. You are allowed ease. You are allowed to live so your body and your soul matter and not just your output.

This decade is still yours.