The shift ended hours ago. You are still on it.
Your schedule does not change. What you bring home does.
The Stand Down Protocol is twelve drills over twelve weeks, run on your own or with your numbers read every Monday. Four of the drills are free in the Field Guide.
Start the Field Edition · $182Day 28 guarantee · Founding price
Lead people and short on time? See the Command Edition, 2 founding seats open. Buying for a shift, a unit or a department? That is the Agency Edition.
Tick what was true this week.
Nothing you tick leaves this page. Each line shows the drill built for it.
Every line on this list has a drill. All twelve are in the Field Edition, and four are free in the Field Guide.
This is not a test, and it does not diagnose anything. If tonight is worse than anything on this list, call or text 988.
Do the math on what nothing costs.
Take the years you have left in this work. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.
Now take the version of you that walks through the door most nights. Not the worst one. The average one.
Still switched on. Short with people who did not cause it. In the room and somewhere else at the same time.
Multiply. That is what the people at home get. Not on the bad nights. On the normal ones.
The problem was never you. Nobody ever handed you the schedule, the rep count and the structure that turns a drill into a standing order.
Built by someone who brought the shift home for years.
Adam Jacobs. Senior Chief, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. Fourteen years in uniform so far, and the author of the ten-book Neurowellness Series.
For years I came home physically, but mentally still at work, and called it normal. I was very good at going up and completely untrained at coming down.
I remember reporting for a midnight shift at a detention facility holding more than 2,000 people. By 0700, I had heard stories I could not forget: dangerous journeys, exploitation, and what some of them had survived to get there. I listened, trying to understand what kind of desperation makes someone risk everything. Then I carried those stories home.
I did not talk about what I had heard or how deeply it affected me. I was afraid that admitting I was struggling could cost me my security clearance. Over time, that silence got heavier than any shift. I was in the house. I was not home.
Five years later, I finally got help. It did not cost me my clearance.
I learned every drill in this protocol the long way, at home, in front of people who did not deserve the version of me that walked through the door. So I wrote the drills down, put them on a schedule, and ran them as reps.
I built it for the people I work beside: military, law enforcement, corrections, fire, EMS, dispatch, and nurses. Here is the first drill.
Run drill one now. Seventy-two seconds.
This is The Brake, the drill five of the other eleven are built on. In through the nose for four, out through the mouth for eight, six rounds. Sit down, or park first.
If you get lightheaded, stop and breathe normally.
That was drill one of twelve. One run is a good intention. The Field Edition puts all twelve on a schedule with a thirty-second log, so they are still running in month three.
Start the Field Edition · $182Not ready to spend anything? Get the free Field Guide, four drills and the Signal Check.
Twelve weeks from still on to off duty.
One new drill a week. You keep the old ones running, and at week twelve you cut the stack down to the five you keep. The longest drill takes ten minutes, and eight of them take under two. Here is what the reps train.
| Week one | Week twelve |
|---|---|
| You replay the call on the drive home. | You run The Drive Home, parked for the breathing. |
| You walk in still at work. | Hand on the door, one breath, and the shift is over. |
| You wake at 0200 and check the clock. | You do not check the clock. You run the count. |
| What the day did to you comes out of your mouth. | Ten seconds between what the day did and what you say. |
| A pile of good intentions. | One page in your locker: the five drills you keep for the rest of your career. |
These are the reps the drills train. They are not a promise of how anyone will feel.
Phase one. Signal Check. Weeks 1 to 4.
Read your own gauge and put a hard boundary on the shift. Drills: The Brake, The Readout, The Drive Home, The Doorway.
Phase two. Stand Down. Weeks 5 to 8.
Let the shift actually end, and protect the sleep the schedule takes first. Drills: The Finish, The 0200 Reset, The Shutdown Sequence, The Night Shift Setup.
Phase three. Come Home Whole. Weeks 9 to 12.
What the people in your house actually get, and how to make it permanent. Drills: The Ten Second Gap, The Reset Between, The Weekly Offload, The Standing Order.
What is proven so far, and what is not.
The honest state of the evidence.
- My own numbers came first. I ran the first four weeks on the same Signal Check and rep sheets you will get: 29 out of 40 in week one, 19 on day twenty eight. Lower is better.
- Then the buyers' numbers, from those who choose to share. No names, no agencies, nothing edited.
- Not proven yet: that twelve weeks moves the Signal Check for people like you. The first buyers are funding that evidence, which is why the founding prices exist.
Ten statements about the last two weeks. Score each one 0 to 4 and add them up, out of 40. Lower is better. You score it in week one, on day twenty eight, and in week twelve. Nobody sees it but you.
One person's self-reported scores, posted as logged. Buyers' numbers go here as they choose to share them.
Start at $182. Or have me read your numbers.
The Field Edition is the version I would have wanted at twenty five. Command is the version I would have wanted at forty, with less time and more on the line.
Both editions run the same twelve drills on the Rep Standard: one new drill a week, a thirty-second log, and one page in your locker at week twelve. Same Signal Check, no app, no calls. Here is what changes.
| Field Edition | Command Edition |
|---|---|
| You read your own gauge | I read it with you, every week |
| Paper Signal Check, scored by you | Signal Check plus your WHOOP sleep and recovery data |
| The manual's schedule | Your manual built around your real calendar |
| Drill cards and a paperback, shipped | A field kit in a hard case, shipped |
| Recorded sessions | Recorded sessions plus a one-page brief every Monday |
| Twelve weeks | A two-week baseline, then the same twelve |
| Day 28 money-back guarantee | A two-week exit, and a week-twelve guarantee |
If you will run a protocol on your own, the Field Edition is the whole system. If you have run systems before and a bad month always wins, Command is built for that.
See every tier and price
One protocol, five ways in. Highlighted rows are the founding prices, open now.
| Tier | Scope | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Field Edition, founding | The twelve-week protocol, every tool, and three bonuses. The founding price holds until the first buyers' day 28 results and reviews are in. What is inside. | $182 |
| Command, founding (2 of 2 open) | Everything in the Field Edition, plus the field kit, a day-15 baseline brief, twelve Monday briefs and a direct line. January 2027 cohort. What is inside. | $6,500 |
| Command Edition | The same, from the second cohort. | $9,500 |
| Command Plus (waitlist) | Command, plus labs at the start and at week twelve, ordered and read by a licensed clinician who bills you directly. Opens once a clinician partner is signed, with Command graduates first. Join the waitlist. | From$9,500plus clinician fees |
| Agency Edition | A shift, a unit or a department, with your own certified trainers, policy language and reporting. See the Agency Edition. | $18,000+ |
Field Edition: one payment, or four with Shop Pay. Command: a refundable $2,000 deposit holds your seat, and the rest is invoiced by ACH after you are accepted. Every Command seat has a two-week exit, which keeps $2,000 to cover the kit you keep and your first two weeks.
Field Edition. Run it alone, for $182.
For the person who just ran drill one and wants the other eleven.
One drill is a start. It will not survive a bad month. The Field Edition gives you the schedule, the log and the twelve-week structure that turns a drill into a standing order. Nobody watches, nobody calls, and your employer never sees any of it.
Three minutes, from me.
What it asks of you.
The Stand Down Protocol. Twelve weeks, self-paced.
The full Field Manual: twelve drills, one page each, and the week-twelve cut-down. Personal-use edition, licensed to you. Ships with:
- Twelve recorded sessions, seven to ten minutes each, one per week.
- The Signal Check and private scoring sheet. Week one, day twenty eight, week twelve.
- Twelve Weekly Rep Sheets and two printed Drill Cards, shipped.
- The three Stand Down Workbooks, one per phase.
- The Solo Operator Guide, for the two weeks where people quit.
- The Standing Order and quarterly review, the page that outlasts the program.
Bonus one. The Family Conversation.
One page and a sixteen minute recording for the person at home: what this is, what it is not, and the one sentence that lets them help without becoming your supervisor.
Bonus two. The 0200 Reset guided audio.
A guided recording of The 0200 Reset, my voice running the count, for the middle of the night.
Bonus three. The Neurowellness Series, all ten books in one paperback.
The science behind every drill. Ships with your drill cards.
See one real week before you pay for twelve.
This is week one exactly as it ships: the manual page and the log.
The founding price holds until the first buyers' day 28 results and reviews are in. When it goes up, this page will say so first.
Start the Field Edition · $182One payment, or four interest-free payments of $45.50 with Shop Pay.
Manual, audio and workbooks unlock today. Cards and book ship in five business days.
Full refund. No call. No argument.
Run the first four weeks and log them. If your Signal Check number on day twenty eight is not lower than it was on day one, email the four rep sheets and both scores within thirty five days of purchase. Full refund to your card within five business days. Nothing has to be shipped back, and you keep everything.
Full terms in the store refund policy.
Command Edition. I read your numbers every week.
For the person who leads a shift, a unit, a floor or a company, and is still carrying it at 2300.
You run the same twelve drills. The difference is that every Sunday night I read your week, and every Monday at 0600 you get one page telling you what moved and what to change. Still no calls. Your calendar does not change. What you bring home does.
This is for you if the day follows you home.
- You lead people, and the phone does not stop when you leave.
- You hand off the shift or close the laptop, and you are still running it hours later.
- You travel for work, and your sleep pays for every trip.
- You wake at 0200 and run tomorrow's brief in your head.
- Caffeine gets you through the back half of the shift, and a second wind keeps you up when you finally can sleep.
- The people at home get whatever is left after everyone else.
- You have tried the apps. You quit by day four.
What Command adds to the Field Edition.
Everything in the Field Edition
The protocol, all twelve recorded sessions, the Signal Check, rep sheets, drill cards, workbooks, and all three bonuses.
The field kit, in a hard case
- A WHOOP band with twelve months of membership. Your sleep and recovery data, the backbone of every brief.
- AirPods Max 2 with twelve months of Audicin audio, with the track and the minute named in your manual.
- Your Field Manual, printed and bound, with your calendar built in and your initials on the cover.
Your first brief on day 15
Two weeks wearing the band and changing nothing. Then one page that shows your baseline, measured against you, not an average. This is where you see it working, and where the two-week exit sits.
A brief every Monday for twelve weeks, and a direct line
One page at 0600: what moved, what it tracks with in your week, and one or two adjustments, written by me from your data and your Sunday check-in. Between briefs, encrypted messages with replies within 24 hours, Monday to Saturday.
A week-six review and a week-twelve After-Action Report
Your before and after, and a plan you can run without me.
What it asks of you.
See a Monday brief before you apply.
What moved. You were asleep by 2300 on three of your four nights off, up from one of four in your baseline.
What it tracks with. The one late night came after a shift with a call past 0300.
This week.
- Start The Drive Home before you leave the lot, not after you pull in.
- On your first night off, start your evening audio at 2215.
Keep doing. The Doorway, every time you come home.
Sample brief. Illustrative figures, not a client's data.
Two-minute application. A personal video reply within 72 hours.
A refundable $2,000 deposit holds your seat. Once your kit ships, it covers the kit.
Want this for your team? That is the Agency Edition.
Read your first brief. Then decide.
The two-week exit. Wear the band through your baseline and read your first brief on day 15. If Command is not for you, reply within seven days and you get back everything except $2,000, which covers the kit you keep and your first two weeks.
The week-twelve guarantee. Complete ten of twelve Sunday check-ins and log the protocol on eighty percent of days. If at week twelve you do not rate Command worth more than you paid, the next twelve weeks of briefs are on me.
Service guarantees, not a promise of any health result.
Disclosure, volunteered up front. I also own Astral & Root, which makes supplements. Command does not include or require any of them, and none ship unless you ask for them.
Reading this for someone you live with?
You already know which version of them walks through the door. You are not the problem, and neither are they. Nobody ever handed them the drills.
Start small. Send them the free Field Guide with no speech attached. Four drills, twenty-eight pages, and their employer never sees it.
If they go further, the Field Edition comes with The Family Conversation: one page and a sixteen minute recording written for you, the person at home.
If you are worried about them tonight, 988 takes calls and texts from family too. If anyone is in danger right now, call 911.
What this is not.
- Not medical or mental health treatment. Neither edition diagnoses or treats anything. If you are under care, keep doing exactly what they told you, and run this alongside it.
- Not calls. Neither edition has any. Command is written, on your schedule.
- Not crisis support. The Command line is answered within a day, not a minute. If you need help now, call or text 988.
- Not licensed for a team. One person, personal use. A shift, a unit or a department runs the Agency Edition.
Questions people ask before they choose.
Which edition should I start with?
Run drill one on this page first. If you want more before you spend anything, the free Field Guide. If you ran one and want the system, the Field Edition. If you have run systems before and the bad month always wins, Command.
Why not just keep using the free guide?
You can. Four drills, no schedule, no log. It works for two or three weeks, and then a bad week convinces you it does not. That is what happened to me. The drills are free. The system is what you are buying: the schedule, the log, the sessions, the cards, the day twenty eight check, and the page in your locker at the end.
How much time does this take?
About ten minutes of drills a day, and thirty seconds for the log. Most drills hang on something you already do, like coming through the door or lying down. Command adds a two-minute check-in on Sunday. If it is taking longer, you are overcomplicating it, and the manual says so.
What if Command is not for me?
You find out by day 15. Read your first brief, and if it is not for you, reply within seven days. You get back everything except $2,000, which covers the kit you keep and your first two weeks.
Can I start with the Field Edition and move up?
Yes. Run the Field Edition first, and apply for Command whenever you want your numbers read every week.
Is Command coaching?
It is one to one, written, and built from your own data. There are no sessions and no calls. If you want to talk before you apply, say so on the application and we will set up twenty minutes.
Do I have to wear the WHOOP?
For Command, yes, every night. The Monday brief runs on it. The Field Edition needs nothing but the log. Already own a WHOOP? Say so on your application and the kit adjusts.
Will my employer or chain of command know?
Not from us. Unless your organization pays for your seat, your employer never learns you bought either edition. If it pays for Command, it sees one invoice and nothing else: no data, no scores, no messages. Command data is encrypted, never sold, and deleted twelve months after you finish.
I am already seeing somebody. Should I still do this?
Ask them first. If they say yes, run it alongside your care, not instead of it. It is never a replacement for the appointment.
I lead a company, not a shift. Does this fit?
Yes. The drills hang on the handoffs in your day: the drive home, the door, the last email, the flight. Command builds your manual around the calendar you actually have.
I work nights and rotate constantly.
Both editions were built for that. Week eight is entirely about night rotations, and Command builds your manual around the schedule you actually have.
What if I fall off in week three?
Then you are exactly who the Solo Operator Guide was written for. Most people who quit, quit in week two or three, and they quit quietly. The restart rule is simple: go back to week one. Nobody is counting, and the Protocol is yours for good.
Is it a one-time payment?
Field Edition: yes. One payment, or four interest-free payments with Shop Pay. Permanent access, no subscription, no renewal. Command: one invoice by ACH after you are accepted. The WHOOP and Audicin memberships in the kit are paid for twelve months, and renewing them after that is your choice.
Can my organization pay?
For one person, yes. Command can be invoiced to an organization. For a team, that is the Agency Edition.
Apply for a Command seat.
Two minutes. Within 72 hours you get a short personal video from me: what I heard, what your twelve weeks would look like, and whether it is a fit. No sales call unless you ask for one.
Start with the free Field Guide.
Twenty-eight pages, four of the twelve drills, and the Signal Check. Run The Brake twice, take the Signal Check, and see where you stand. Then you will know which edition you want.
Nobody is coming to tell you to stand down.
There is no policy that requires it, and no moment in a shift where somebody hands you the order. It has to come from you.
Pick the version you will actually run.
Start the Field Edition · $182 Apply for a Command seatField: Day 28 money-back guarantee.
Command: two-week exit and a week-twelve guarantee.
P.S. If you skipped to the bottom, here is the short version. Run drill one near the top of this page. It is free and takes seventy-two seconds. Then run the other eleven alone for $182, or take one of two Command seats at $6,500 with a two-week exit.
The alternative costs nothing today. It is another year of the average version of you walking through the door, and the people at home getting what is left.
Run drill one now
Start the Field Edition, $182
Apply for a Command seat