For many people, the emotional demands of daily life can feel relentless — from an unending news cycle and digital overload to concerns about the future and the well-being of their communities and the planet.

Mystic, activist, and intuitive healer Michelle Cassandra Johnson says that exhaustion can extend beyond the physical and emotional. In her new book, You Are Protected: Invoking Spiritual Support to Sustain Your Energy, she explores what she calls “spiritual hygiene” — practices intended to help people reconnect with themselves and sustain their energy.

Johnson says the book was inspired in part by her grandmother Dorothy, who died in 2017. Johnson remembers watching her grandmother begin each morning with a devotional, a cup of coffee and time for spiritual practice.

“I didn’t really connect it in my little child body that what she was doing was she was filling her cup,” Johnson said. “She was connecting with herself and with spirit before she ever started her day.”

Johnson distinguishes spiritual hygiene from the way self-care is often discussed within the wellness industry. Rather than focusing solely on individual well-being, she connects self-care to what she calls collective care.

“The premise that I have operated from for a very long time is that if I’m not well, you’re not well. And if you’re not well, we’re not well,” she said.

Johnson says spiritual hygiene involves regularly tending what she describes as an “inner sanctuary” through practices such as silence, study, journaling, contemplation and connection with nature and community.

She says the need for those practices can be especially acute now.

“It’s a big task being a human on the planet right now,” Johnson said, pointing to information overload, polarization and what she describes as a “polycrisis” — multiple crises unfolding at the same time.

In her book, she offers a range of spiritual hygiene approaches, including working with elemental energies such as air, fire, water and earth, as well as ancestors, archetypes, animals, deities and saints. Johnson says people can begin simply, perhaps with a deep breath, feeling their feet on the ground or connecting with water or fire.

“Elemental energy is probably the easiest way to begin for someone,” she said.