ADHD Experiment #10: Recharge Protocol
Because Google has been no help
You ever try to look up, “how to relax”?
Go for a walk, they say. Paint a picture, they say.
But it seems like I can’t find any explanation on what it really means to rest and recharge.
The internet is full of “how to be more productive”, but no one seems to answer “how to rest better”.
Resting (or lack of) can be a huge limiting factor in people’s lives and growth. It should 100% be prioritized and deemed necessary.
Yet, in a world of trying to increase productivity, improving rest is maybe the most underutilized route.
I have a theory that’s because rest isn’t something that happens naturally for most.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned since working on improving my life with ADHD, it’s that the brain cannot be left unsupervised or with unclear instructions. And “relax” is about as unclear as it can get.
Rather I think it’s a skill. One that can be cultivated and refined. On that’s vital for growth.
So I’m gonna figure it out.
I thought I had too much going on to rest.
Trying to keep up with weekly chores, work, school, you get it.
Any time I had a chance to take a breather all I had energy for was sitting on the couch, on my phone, with a show I’ve seen 27 times playing on the TV. The crazy thing is looking back I think I did that rather frequently. I felt like I had no time to rest but I’m pretty sure that was a weekly (even close to daily) occurrence.
With everything else being chaotic it was easy to find excuses to rot my time away. But in the last couple months I decided I didn’t like feeling that way. I wanted to figure out how to actually feel rested.
So I tackled what I thought was the main issue and created my Weekly Calibration.
A process to help me make sure all the usual weekend responsibilities (cleaning, meal prepping, laundry, etc.) were taken care of without eating up 2 days.
For those of you who joined more recently you can read all about what Weekly Calibration is more specifically and my trials with setting it up in the Chaotic Archives on my site.
Weekly Calibration helped a lot. It’s not perfect (my processes never are because I think of small changes frequently), but it’s helped me confine my chores to about half a day.
But it also showed me one glaring problem:
I don’t actually know how to rest.
With the extra time I freed up I found myself either finding more chores/work to do until I really did run out of time, or right back on the couch like I did for all those years.
I will say I don’t think this problem is as deeply rooted as my sleep problems (you can also read about my current sleep experiment on my site, it’s going quite well). But it’s definitely at least 7 or 8 years old. For reference, at the time I’m writing this I’m 26. I left home at 18 to join the military so that’s likely when/how it started.
I also want to say I fully know this is a first world problem. Not knowing how to rest is 100% a problem I’m very lucky to be able to focus on. But I also don’t think that makes it asinine.
Lack of rest is starting to limit my growth in other areas.
Lack of quality rest means I don’t feel recharged.
So I have less overall energy.
Making basic maintenance much harder to keep up with.
Resulting in things required to grow feeling impossibly difficult.
See what I mean?
So time to build a rest skill
I’ll be perfectly honest, I have no idea where this experiment is going to go. I have some audiobooks lined up on rest to see what I can learn. I also have a list of questions I aim to answer (which will almost definitely change as time goes on btw):
Obviously, how do I relax?
What does that mean for me?
How do I know when I’ve “fully recharged”?
What kinds of activities help me do that?
How long do I need on a weekly or daily basis?
Can I build a flexible practice that allows me to reliably rest and recharge when I need it?
For now, I’m setting something up as a starting point based off what I already know.
I know that spending all my off time scrolling or watching TV makes me feel like shit (not morally btw just like mentally sluggish, it’s important to me to keep morality out of it).
On the flip side of that, I know that I really struggle to stick with what I call analog hobbies (or acoustic hobbies if you will). I’m willing to bet it’s because I’m so used to getting such a massive amount of dopamine from just sitting on my phone that anything requiring effort feels like too much effort.
I know those analog hobbies require persistence in order to refine the skills associated with them. And the whole idea of enjoying hobbies is to enjoy that refinement.
But I know that all my attempts to integrate those hobbies right off the bat into my everyday life have failed.
And finally, I know with my time management skills if I try to confine this experiment to only an hour or two in the beginning it will get completely missed over and over again.
So here’s the experiment
I will set aside 8-12 hours (for now) of one day a week to be a recharge day. And that day will be split into 3 parts. They are scheduled in the day based off the concept of mental entropy, something I first heard from the creator Dan Koe.
Entropy means chaos. And mental entropy changes throughout the day. For myself, mental entropy is lowest in the morning. During this 2-4 hour window (sometimes less, sometimes more) is it much easier for me to focus and have control over the monkey brain, so to speak. In the evening the monkey brain is much stronger.
💡 NOTE: My focus hours are something I have continually developed and practiced over time. It was not something I starting magically doing. It’s not easy and it’s not a cure for ADHD. It takes work, but is very worth it. When I started I capped out at around 10 minutes. Total. Per day. If you’re interested in hearing about how I did/do this, reply to this email with “Focus” and if I get 5 I’ll write out a newsletter on it. BUT again this is not a cure and is not a replacement for psychological or medical advice. Just how I went about it.
Forge time (previously development time but forge sounds cooler): Time to refine and develop skills I want.
Time dedicated to things I know don’t give the biggest dopamine hit, but only because I’m not good at them or haven’t worked on enjoying the growth process with them yet.
Things I crave spending time on but have difficulty because of the level of dopamine I’m used to with scrolling and binging TV. Drawing, playing music, wood working, you get it.
This time is scheduled for the first part of the day when mental entropy is lowest. Making it much less likely to be skipped.
Chaos time: Time to let the brain run wild.
Following random research rabbit holes, making plans for a new hobby (or new plans for an old hobby), building a Notion tool I’ve been thinking about, literally whatever is sparking the brain that day.
This time is scheduled second. When mental entropy is getting a bit higher, but I want to let the brain run a while off leash before settling into rot time. This is usually the time I get my best ideas.
Rot time: Time to let the brain be mush.
Video games, scrolling, TV, etc.
Just because I don’t want these to take up all my time doesn’t mean I want to give them up entirely. I fully believe they have a place in a balanced Recharge Protocol just like chips and ice cream do in a diet. If I don’t structure it in, it will lead to binges, guilt, ignoring the other times, and not actually resting (ask me how I know).
Naturally this falls in the evening when my mental entropy is highest. On work days, at this point my brain is usually (intellectually satisfied) mush from exercising it in the morning. I notice days where I had a quality chunk of work time I feel mentally tired, but not mentally sluggish. Which I believe to be an important difference. It’s when I feel like this I expect rot time to be the most beneficial in relaxing.
This all seems a bit extra
I know I know. Setting up a framework to rest seems unnecessary. And like a lot.
But here’s the thing.
For me, I know if I don’t have a clear goal in mind for resting, I’m just going to resort back to TV and scrolling.
At the time this experiment was introduced even video games were difficult for me to pick up because they require just slightly more effort than scrolling.
(For the record, when I started this experiment I theorized that this would change over time and it’s starting to which is so cool. I’m starting to crave video games over my phone. Huge step in the right direction.)
I’d like to reiterate that scrolling and TV are totally fine if that’s what you legitimately like.
But I’ve proven to myself time and time again that those things do not make me feel good or rested.
I have strong cravings to do more with my time. I crave creation and growth and skill refinement because I think activities like that are the most fun especially in the long run.
Things like drawing, playing instruments, yoga, etc..
The struggle is those things don’t give the immediate dopamine hit that screens do, so it’s tough to get myself to do them consistently. Consistently enough to build the skill to the point that it’s rewarding anyway.
I’ve done many experiments in the past trying to implement those types of things into my daily life. And they’ve all failed.
Looking back, part of the problem was my weekly maintenance requirements being a bit unmanageable, sure. But I think the bigger problem was I expected to just enjoy those things right off the bat. Even though my idea of a fun weekend at the time was staring at 1-2 glowing boxes for 12 hours straight.
Here’s what I think is gonna happen
If you didn’t catch it, there’s a few points this experiment is aiming at.
Learning what rest really means for me (what it feels like and how to do it).
Improving enjoyment and time spent on analog hobbies (moving away from screens a bit).
Understanding when and how much I need to rest to best support my mental state.
And so there’s a few things I hypothesize will happen:
I’ll be more in control of my rest
The more I consistently initiate Recharge Protocol, the more I’ll understand how I rest
The easier it will get to rest on command.
I’ll understand better when I need specific types of rest.
Like if I had a mentally demanding week maybe I’ll feel better with more chaos and rot time to let my mind off leash. Or if it was a very emotionally demanding week more forge time will help me take my mind off it all. Who knows ¯\(ツ)/¯ but I would love the ability to further tailor my rest days to what I specifically need at the time
It’ll take less time to effectively recharge
Note: this is not the main goal at all. But I do want to develop some flexibility in maintaining my feeling of being recharged. I won’t always be able to dedicate a whole day every week. For now I just need that time to work on understanding the concept of rest better.
As I increase time spent on more mentally demanding (analog) hobbies they’ll be easier to stick to.
I wasn’t fair to my past self by expecting to just enjoy these hobbies right off the bat. It’s difficult to immediately and fully enjoy something that requires developing a skill. So that is why these hobbies will be scheduled in forge time no matter what. If I don’t schedule time to get better at them, they’ll get neglected. I understand I won’t always want to. Which again, is why they’re schedule for the first part of the day.
Here’s how I think it’ll go down: as I give more time to these hobbies, the better I’ll get (because that’s what happens when you practice consistently), the more I’ll start to enjoy the act of getting better, and the easier it’ll be to work on them long term.
This guess isn’t made blindly either. This process is how I learned to exercise consistently and to enjoy cooking consistently
Gaming will be used as a transition to analog hobbies
I think that spending rot time on video games is going to have a similar effect. Rot time is scheduled for when mental entropy is highest for me, when I have a harder time pushing myself to do things. So by filling that time with something that gives a high amount of dopamine, but still requires a little bit of mental effort, I’m working on enjoying effort more and more. Remember, my default is scrolling while watching a comfort show. So gaming requires comparatively more effort than what I’m used to.
This part of the process is already in the works and I’ve already noticed improvements. I’m starting with games I know I’ll like, kinda like choosing a comfort show. But my plan is to work on integrating new games more and more as time goes on to really work on building that enjoyment of effort.
From there what I suspect will happen is the craving to put in effort will spread to other areas. Until I’m craving analog hobbies more than digital hobbies. Not automatically, but by choosing what aspects of the hobbies I’m focusing on improving.
Not that I’ll completely ditch scrolling and TV. I just don’t want to rely on it to relax because it doesn’t feel great. Kinda like how I don’t want to eat chocolate cake every day. It tastes really good but too much over time and I’m gonna feel sluggish.
I’m very intrigued to see how this experiment changes and shifts as I learn more about what I actually need. I’m also looking forward to finally using all the hobby supplies I’ve bought over the years on a consistent basis.
I’m thinking of changing up how I send out stuff on my experiments because I realized I am not great about keeping you guys in the loop lol. I evaluate how experiments are going every Thursday (my Friday). So I’m thinking of sending out a short summary every Thursday with what I was focusing on for the week, what I learned/am gonna change, ending on my focuses for the upcoming week.
If you’re interested in seeing more in depth how I move through my experiments like this lmk. I read all emails. I’ll probably do it regardless if anyone wants it or not because I like talking about it but I want to hear your thoughts anyway.
But that’s all for this one. Until next time.
-Savannah
Thank you so much for reading the Chaotically Consistent Newsletter! I’m Savannah, the personal trainer with ADHD. I started this newsletter because I enjoy creating and experimenting with processes and systems to make life easier for my brain, and I like sharing what I learn. If you’ve ever wished that you had help setting up systems in the 4 main pillars of health; exercise, nutrition, sleep, and rest, then stay tuned because I have an exciting announcement coming soon!
