Creativity and Recovery
I’m writing today’s article during the busiest time of year - December. In the midst of buying presents, wrapping, writing Christmas cards, doing Planmas, vlogmas and getting all my planners prepped and ready for the new year, and doing all the regular routines on top of it all, I am exhausted!
I’ve been tracking sleep lately with my Apple Watch and I’ve been averaging four hours of sleep per night. I’m pretty sure 7-8 is the normal “healthy average”.
Concentration and focus are usually out the window on very little sleep, but I have learned to work despite these no sleep conditions. I know that it’s not healthy for my body, but I always tell myself as soon as we’re out of the busy season, things will go back to normal and I can finally start to sleep again.
Now, lately, I’ve been talking about creativity because in Janes Agenda Masterclass, we’ve been reading some books on the topic. For November, we read books entitled Thrive and The Power of Full Engagement.
These books focus more on health, and taking care of yourself so you can be a full functioning individual of society. But I see a theme between creativity and health - namely, if you’re too run down and exhausted, you can’t focus on anything.
If you have a brainstorming session, you might find that your head hurts after awhile. (Most people joke about this, but it’s actually true). The best idea is to go and take a break. This is what we call recovery. It can be as simple as having a work session for 25 minutes and taking a five minute break (the Pomodoro technique), or, when you’re super exhausted, ensure you have at least 7-8 hours of sleep per night. You will feel so much more refreshed and ready to go when you wake up after a good night’s sleep. Besides for that, (if you’re having a rough period in life), a new morning always seems brighter and full of opportunity and/or possibility.
As with using your brain on anything (the left side is very anaylitical and helps you deal with complex mathematical equations for example, the right brain is your creative hemisphere. So once you take a break, (say you decide to have a snack, go for a walk or have a hot bath), the answers you were looking for might just come at you all of a sudden. It’s like that eureka moment I had back in university. I was in class, not understanding functions and integrals, and the next night I just got it. It was like a fog had been cleared and now I just understood.
My breaks consist of reading an entertaining book (fiction). I’ll start to feel overworked or overwhelmed, and then I know it’s time that I give myself that little break. It really works wonders. When I get back to work focus mode, I’m all the way in, and not sitting there daydreaming about random things.
Since I do have so many things on my task list at any given moment, it’s easy for me to start feeling overwhelmed. I start to get an anxiety attack and then I know I need to distract my brain for a bit. It’s the same as distraction technique for your kids - they’ll be bad, but if you give them something else to focus on, they forget about the first thing and then they’re happy again.
Our brains kind of work like that, especially when you’ve been going around and around in circles and not getting anywhere. Once that distraction hits, it’s like a break for your brain. It acts almost like magic, and I use this technique all the time. We call this recovery for your brain. The next thing you know, you will have the answer to your original problem.
Especially during busy seasons, make sure to take it easy and let yourself have that break. Try not to feel guilty for taking it and especially don’t let anyone else pressure you into not taking care of yourself. We are so important and we need to focus on our physical, mental, and emotional health before we can help anyone else. So, please take care of you!!
Sandra ❤️
