Tired or Depleted? The Printable Self-Check (Free Download)

It’s late, you’ve read three articles about adrenal something, and what you actually want is the one page that settles it: am I tired, or am I depleted?

Fair. The comparisons matter, and the tired vs. depleted guide covers the full science, but at 11 PM the need is for an instrument, not a library. This post is that instrument: the book’s bounce-back test and threshold signs, condensed onto a single page you can copy or print, score in about five minutes, and reuse monthly. No app, no account, no quiz that wants your email first.

What this check measures

One question, asked two ways. First: does rest still work on you? Tired people bounce back; that’s the whole definition. Second: has the reserve been running low long enough to cross the threshold, the quiet line where tiredness becomes depletion and the treatments stop overlapping?

It is not a medical test. It won’t rule out thyroid issues, anemia, or depression, and if exhaustion has persisted for months or is deepening, a professional is the right next step regardless of your score. What it does is replace the vague, circling worry with a number and a direction.

How to use it

Three rules, borrowed from the book’s assessment, and they matter more than the questions:

1. Honesty. No rounding up to seem fine. Nobody is watching, and the polite answer only cheats you.
2. Kindness. Whatever the score says, it gets met like a friend’s confession, not a verdict.
3. No fixing during the check. Score first, plan later. In that order.

Print this page, or copy the block below into a note. A pen works better than a phone, if only because the phone has other plans.

The printable

TIRED OR DEPLETED? THE ONE-PAGE CHECK
Date: ____________

PART A - DOES REST STILL WORK?          (yes / no)
1. After a full night's sleep, do you feel
   meaningfully better?                     ____
2. After a weekend with no plans, do you feel
   restored by Sunday evening?              ____
3. When something good happens, do you feel it
   in your body, or does it arrive flat?    ____
4. At the end of the workday, is there anything
   left in you for the evening?             ____

PART B - THE 6 THRESHOLD SIGNS           (0 = not me, 1 = me)
Last 3-6 months, not your worst week:
5. Same output, much more effort to produce it.     ____
6. Recovery from hard days keeps taking longer.     ____
7. Sleep happens but no longer fully resets you.    ____
8. Motivation is manufactured, not natural.         ____
9. Your yes comes from obligation, not want.        ____
10. Free time gets filled with stimulation because
    silence feels uncomfortable.                    ____

PART C - THE ACCOUNT
If your energy were a bank account, right now I am:
    [ ] deeply in the red   [ ] barely in the black
    [ ] living off credit

THE HONEST SENTENCE, said out loud:
"I am currently functioning at ___% of my real
 capacity, and I've been ignoring it because
 ____________________."

SCORE: Part A "no" count: ___ of 4
       Part B total: ___ of 6

How to read your result

Part A: 0–1 “no”, Part B: 0–1. You’re tired, and tired is the good diagnosis: it means rest works. Take it. A real weekend, a few early nights, one optional thing declined. Tired is worth solving early, precisely so it never graduates into the other condition.

Part A: 2 “no”, Part B: 2–3. The border zone. Early depletion, before it hardens. This band responds fast to two small moves: shrink one real drain this week (one boundary, one meeting turned into an email, one scrolling hour replaced with nothing) and add one daily refill (five to ten minutes of genuine calm, no screen attached). Recheck in a month.

Part A: 3–4 “no”, Part B: 4–6. Depleted. More sleep won’t fix this, and neither will a sterner schedule. The order of operations changes: protect the energy you have left, reduce the hidden drains, and rebuild the core with small, consistent, gentle practice over months. The gentle step-by-step recovery plan assembles that into a week you can start without rearranging your life, and if the score has been sitting here for many months, bring a professional in alongside the self-work; the check is a mirror, not a diagnosis.

Two readings worth knowing: many people discover they’ve been running at 30 to 50 percent of their real capacity for years, and nobody noticed, including them. And the sentence at the bottom, said out loud, is usually where the pretending stops. Most people report a strange mix of relief and grief. Both are fine. Both are the reset starting.

Make it a monthly habit

One score is a snapshot; monthly scores are a trend line, and trends catch slow leaks before the flatness does. Same date each month, five minutes, no averaging with your best day. Most people who keep it up notice the same thing by month two or three: the number starts responding to small changes. That response is the quiet proof that the account can refill.

If you want the deeper instrument, the 10-minute honest energy check reads the reserve from seven angles, the 6-sign self-check explains each threshold sign in full, the reusable core energy template turns the book’s complete assessment into a worksheet you can keep, and the energy audit practice is the wider hub for measuring the refill.

Key takeaways

• One page, five minutes: four bounce-back questions plus the six threshold signs, scored honestly.
• Part A tests whether rest still works; Part B tests whether you’ve crossed the threshold.
• 0–1 means tired (rest is the real fix), 2–3 means border zone (one boundary, one refill), 4+ means depleted (protect, shrink, rebuild).
• The out-loud sentence is where the pretending stops, and most people feel relief and grief arriving together.
• Run it monthly; the direction of the number matters more than the number.

Frequently asked questions

Is this the same as the 10-minute energy check?

It’s the portable version of the same territory. The 10-minute check is the full assessment: your 1–10 score, autopilot percentage, gives and drains lists, last real joy, body scan, and the named fear. This one-page check keeps the two sharpest instruments, bounce-back and threshold signs, and drops the rest so it fits on a page and in a schedule. Run the short one monthly; run the deep one when the short one surprises you.

Can I print and share it?

Yes. Copy the block, print it, tape it inside a notebook, share it with the friend who’s been saying “I’m just tired” for a year. It’s designed to travel without asking anything of you. If you want something more structured for tracking over months, the core energy assessment template is the bigger worksheet from the same book.

My score scared me. What now?

Then the check did its job: a scary number is information you can finally act on, and it was true before you measured it. Start smaller than you want to: one drain shrunk this week, five minutes of genuine calm daily, and a recheck in a month. And if the exhaustion has lasted months or feels heavy in a way words like “depleted” don’t quite cover, loop in a doctor or therapist now rather than later. Support is the version of this plan with a second pair of eyes.

Is this a medical diagnosis?

No, and it’s important that it isn’t mistaken for one. It’s a structured self-reflection that sorts two everyday states with different treatments. Persistent fatigue deserves a professional’s attention no matter what this page says, both to rule out physical causes and because you shouldn’t have to figure this out alone.

You’ve measured your steps, your sleep, your screen time. This is the measurement that was missing. Quiet Core Reset takes whatever your score just showed you and builds the refill plan around it: small, daily, kind, and sized for a real life.

Not medical advice. If exhaustion persists or deepens, please consult a professional.