book review: inner workout by taylor elyse morrison
if you’ve been around the thrive phd universe for a minute, you know that i started this whole business because i felt left out of so many conversations and spaces in grad school. my body, my brain, my community - we all needed a LOT of care to get through the dissertation process. in the best cases, people understood that my chronic illness, and my brain that tended toward anxiety, had different needs and they left me space to care for myself. but in the worst cases, my yoga practice was viewed as a luxury, my time in therapy an indulgence, and my boundaries around work one of many signs that i didn’t have what it took to be a “serious academic”.
luckily for me, one of the things that the aforementioned therapy sessions helped with was putting these comments into context, and giving me the permission and skills i needed to do my work, but also live my life and take care of myself. and luckily for a lot of us, the conversation has moved on in the years since i was actively dissertating, and self care has become more openly discussed. but with that increased discussion has also come a whole host of other complications: increased commodification; privileging white, affluent, able-bodied voices; a culture of victim blaming that places the onus making time for and practicing care exclusively on the individual, among others.
but even more luckily for all of us, a new book has come out that made huge strides in creating an actionable, inclusive set of tools for approaching self care in a holistic, multifaceted way. inner workout: strengthening self-care practices for healing body, soul, and mind by taylor elyse morrison is part assessment (you know i love an assessment!), part toolkit, part context for understanding how and why you might have arrived at your specific relationship to self care. taylor is the founder of inner workout, which has created an ecosystem of seminars, meditations, trainings, and tools to help people develop easy, sustainable self care routines, and you can see the breadth and depth of her experience in every page of the book. beyond her impressive CV, i appreciated that taylor wrote this book from the perspective of someone actively caring for themselves, and not doing it perfectly all of the time, or maybe even most of the time. the book is not a gospel from a self care god, speaking to you from high atop the mountain. taylor writes this book as a fellow traveler, maybe a few steps ahead of you on the path, but moving backwards and forwards all the time, as we all are. the difference is refreshing.
the book guides you through the context of self care as a theoretical framework used by many cultures, at many points of history - including so many normally left out of the conversation, like indigenous cultures and religious spaces. and then you take the “take care” assessment. your relationship to self care is measured in terms of five “dimensions”, each with corresponding subdimensions that map elements like relationship to your physical body, and your your connection to community and larger purpose. i love how the assessment is meant to be repeated (taylor recommends seasonally) - it feels like less of a scorecard and more of a self portrait. and because i’m a show and not tell girl, here is the snapshot of my results as of march 2023:
the image has text that says “Your Snapshot: here’s a visualization of how you’re currently relating to self-care. the size of the circle is relative to your positive relationship with that dimension.” there are five circles of various sizes and colors, listed here in descending order of size: bliss, mental and emotional, wisdom, energetic, physical.
the book continues to detail each dimension and sub dimension, with personal stories, exercises to deepen your understanding, playlist suggestions, and more. you can read it straight through (like me, highlighting like every single page) or flip through it as you need.
after taking my assessment and reading the book, i felt inspired to engage with my physical dimension more frequently. not surprisingly to anyone who knows me, and probably relatable for scholars everywhere, i spend a LOT of time in my head, and the relative disconnection i feel to my physical body is a something that i am continually working on (and probably always will be!) the book felt like a compassionate way into that relationship, and not like another thing to add to my already long list of things to do. i’m not instantly more embodied, but i can say that i have been inviting myself back into my body more often in the last week, and that’s not nothing!!
this book is definitely for you if you’re looking for some support for your self care that feels personalized, inclusive, and written with overlapping systems of inequality and privilege as the foundation, not a footnote. if you’re looking for a book about self care written by a Black woman who lives her ambition and values her care, this book is definitely for you. i read a lot of books, listen to a lot of podcasts, and do a lot of work with self care every day so take it from me that this feels different: more actionable, more approachable, more inclusive, and more fun.
(i’m not being paid to write this review - i bought the book with my own money and wrote this of my own free will - it was just a really good book that i felt like you should know about!!)
completing the stress cycle
I've been reading a book called Burnout: the Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. It's pretty good (although explicitly geared towards female-identifying people), and one of the main ideas is that:
Just because you resolved the stressor doesn't mean you've dealt with the stress.
Think about it this way: imagine you've seen a lion. Your body goes into fight or flight mode (or it freezes), and your whole system is flooded with a bunch of chemicals and hormones to make sure that your body and mind act in a way that will keep you safe. If you fight the lion or flee from it, all those hormones have a job and are used by your body. You walk away with your life, and then you rest, because you just beat a lion.
Unfortunately, our bodies don't know the difference between a deadline and a lion. So we activate that same bunch of chemicals and hormones - our hearts can race, we can focus more clearly, we might feel jittery, and we either get the work done, or we don't.
But what most of us do not do when faced with deadlines, or any of the other stressors that can come up during the day, is complete the stress cycle. We resolve the stressor, but we don't give ourselves the chance to get all of that physical and emotional and mental energy a place to go. We hop to the next task, or maybe we get some fitful rest while feeling guilty that we aren't done. But the stress stays - and every time that cycle restarts without completing, we just build up more and more of a tolerance to the stress response.
And when we're tolerating the stress response, it takes more and more pressure to get it to be effective. A deadline a week away used to get us moving, and now it's more like three days. Or we feel the adrenaline kick in, and we ignore it, avoid it, or work on something else less scary. We get stuck in the feelings of stress and pressure, and that stuckness is what contributes to our burnout.
The good news is that there are ways, scientifically proven ways!, to complete that stress cycle. Here are a bunch of ways that they offer:
Physical exercise - one of the most effective, as it "tells your brain that you have successfully survived the threat and now your body is a safe space to live." Any movement will do!
Breathing - deep, slow breathing to downregulate the stress response
Positive social interaction - "reassure your brain that the world is a safe, sane place and that not all people suck!" Check ins on the Thrive Network or poms in the chat room are great for this, as is smiling at people on the street or saying hello to acquaintances in the hallway.
Laughter - Maru is always great for a laugh!
Affection - people, pets, all counts!
Crying - strong recommend from me if it's safe to do so!
Creative Expression - see this article for more!
Rest - Active or passive, they both can help
But, in general, you have to DO something to complete the cycle. You have to acknowledge the stress and take a step to assure yourself that you're safe. The threat is over, or it's time to take a break, and you'll be back tomorrow, or after lunch.
Adding more stress, or saying you'll break later, only adds to the feeling of being stuck, and the actual biological conditions that that creates. So experiment with doing things - at the end of a work day, a week, or even a pom - to complete the cycle. And let us know if it helps!
schedule like you love yourself
A client last week was filling out a daily journal and mentioned that a mantra, in a Yoga for Adrienne video, was really sticking in their brain:
Breathe like you love yourself. Move like you love yourself.
And as I often do, I joked around and said "Thesis like you love yourself! Schedule like you love yourself!"
And it happened, as it often does, that the phrase stuck with me. I spent the next week walking around, and it would pop into my head: schedule like you love yourself.
What would that look like? What does my schedule look like right now? If someone saw my day to day rhythms and didn't know me, would they look at it and say "there goes a person who really cares about themselves!"
There are definitely elements that suggest I love myself! I have a pretty strict bedtime, I have dates to catch up with friends. I have some workouts in there - I have days off.
But some things in there are a little dicey - some days I'm scheduled all the way from breakfast to lunch with very little downtime! I often don't get to my workout until late in the day - not because I couldn't squeeze it in, but because I feel like I have to earn it.
And I DEFINITELY know that there have been seasons of my life where if you looked at my schedule, it would have been 92.7% work, and 7.3% collapsing from exhaustion. It would be difficult to have anyone look at that and say yes, that is a schedule of a person who loves themselves.
But, there's also something deeper at work in the structuring of the phrase: schedule like you love yourself.
What a beautiful work, like! Because it actually gives us the freedom to separate how we might actually feel from minute to minute (I don't know about you, but the relationship between me and my other selves is evolving and changing and not all sunshine and joy all the time!), from how we schedule. It's not "love yourself first and then schedule like it!" It suggests that if we schedule in activities that make it easier to care for ourselves, then we might just have an easier time caring for ourselves.
So if it feels like a little bit of a stretch, in this season of love and romance and hearts, to start from the self-love and care and move outwards, try scheduling first, and see if that doesn't invite a little more of it in.
ecosystem theory: how to reframe the "i do this or i do that" binary
“yeah sure i would love to take weekends off but i have way too much work for that to be feasible”
“of course i would love to have time to exercise but lol have you seen my to do list?”
“reading in my field not for a specific project, just to be aware? HA! not this term buddy!!!”
the list of things we SHOULD be doing is enormous - be a great colleague and teacher and scholar and writer and researcher and committee member and have time for side gigs and volunteer for your resume and……that’s just the tip of the iceberg in professional academic settings. you might also be in possession of a human body that has needs, or maybe you have relationships you’d like to maintain, or an interest outside of work that you would like to pursue! there truly isn’t enough time in the day to even approach optimization in all categories - and that’s without worldwide pandemic events that disrupt everyone for years on end.
but one of the big barriers i find - as both a human and a coach who works with humans - is the discrete nature of choice. in any given hour of the day, i can only do one thing at a time (i mean i could multitask but i fall down enough just walking, i definitely shouldn’t try to write emails and walk at the same time.) so at some level, i have to either choose to spend that hour sleeping, or eating, or moving my body, or answering emails. i can combine and optimize and shoot for an order that makes sense, but if you can’t do everything, you do have to choose some things.
and if your brain is really focused on the urgent, important work of your professional life (and wow does our society like to really redirect our focus there if it ever drifts!!), it can be hard NOT to frame things as “i’m either caught up at work, OR my human stuff is being handled.” so often, this leads us to focus on either fitting more into every day (i’ll get up earlier or work one weekend day a week!) or trying to work faster so that we can fit in more - and those efforts make sense logically but they also create ripe conditions for exhaustion and burnout.
what does all this have to do with ecosystems, katy?? well, in a former life, i wrote a lot about how animals are portrayed in media, and lots of my work actually focused on how media is used to drive conservation efforts. i’m sure you’ve heard calls to save the pandas, or protect polar bears from losing their habitat, or drawing your attention to the destruction of coral reefs. now, in no way am i suggesting that we shouldn’t save pandas (look at them in the snow!) or that polar bears haven’t been forced into smaller and smaller ranges to their detriment, or that coral reefs aren’t some of the most stunning examples of biodiversity in the world and we shouldn’t save them!! my argument here is that by focusing on one species, rather than the whole ecosystem, we can make short term decisions that have long term consequences, however unintended.
i’m not the first person to talk about this, obviously - there are discussion about umbrella species, how to use celebrity species to raise money, and how to spend that money in a way that supports ecosystem rehabilitation, and how to focus attention on large scale, complex issues like climate change when people want easy, sexy wins like reducing acid rain. but, in this context - choosing what to spend our precious time on during the day, week, month, or year - i think that these discussions actually have a lot to tell us about how we can view the interactions between our work output and our life.
for example, in my life, i have to work on fitting exercise and movement into my day. i am not one of those people blessed with the ability to get up in the morning and run, or do much else but play wordle in bed until i’m ready to face the day, so i have to squeeze it in somewhere else. in the thick of the day, when my inbox is full and people need things, it’s really hard to say “yes, let’s drop everything and do a workout video” because it definitely isn’t as urgent, and can often feel less important. in the race between “job” and “move body”, body doesn’t always win in the head to head competition.
but it’s not a head to head competition, at least not most of the time. if i take 20 minutes to go for a walk, i often get some direct benefits (visit from the neighborhood cats, some serotonin, a chance to listen to a good podcast) and then some less direct ones (increased focus after i come back, a sense of pride that i made time even though it was hard, better sleep). moving my body is good for the ecosystem of my life, even if in the moment it isn’t the best choice for my writing when viewed in isolation.
when i pay attention to my ecosystem, rather than just optimizing conditions for one task or group of tasks, i do tend to spend my time differently. i have to work a little harder up front on scheduling, weather a few temper tantrums about not wanting to go do hard things like folding laundry, and sometimes, it does mean that people are waiting for me, or that i don’t respond immediately to emails, or that i’m less reachable at certain times of the day and week. but just like reducing stormwater runoff doesn’t directly help beavers return to my local nature preserve, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t play a part, or isn’t worth doing. together with stream conservation, community education, ecostewards that monitor stream health, municipal policies, and urban planning, my rain barrel does make a difference (and provides me with a free way to water my gardens all summer long, too).
the health of your personal ecosystem matters - metaphorically and also literally. what would change about how you schedule and prioritize and plan if you were thinking about your ecosystem rather than your tasks? and like ecosystem conversation, it might take some time for your changes to have benefits that you can track. and it doesn’t mean that there are big problems and challenges and hurdles that your individual choices alone won’t really move the needle on! sometimes, we just need a reframe to help ourselves seem some wiggle room where there wasn’t any before. your ecosystem matters, and it’s worth experimenting to help protect and strengthen it.
what if there was no virtuous way to work?
"I got it done, and it went really well, but I was definitely working up until the last minute"
"I hate that I was rushing, but I guess I did finish it!"
"Yeah, this went really well, but next time, I want to be done at least a week before."
Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not advocating that everyone stop pushing before deadlines, or that there's anything noble about staying up all night! What I'm saying is:
There is no one way of working that is inherently "good" or "correct" or "desirable", just as there is no "bad" way of working. There's just working, and what it does for you, and your life.
So for years and years, I have felt guilty that I write mostly on deadlines. I will have a course, or a blog post, or something that's due, and I will get it done in time, but if I have three weeks to write it, I will start it ....closer to the deadline, and not the instant it is on my to do list. So I'll get it done, and it will go well, and I'll like it, and people will like it, and I can't be 100% happy with that, just because I didn't "spread it out".
Every accomplishment came with a "but next time" clause: this was great, but next time I'll start earlier; this worked well and I'm proud, but also I wish I wasn't like this.
And as I got to know myself and my work habits better, I realized that a lot of my guilt and shame around some of my working habits were because I believed that I was getting the results, but I wasn't doing it the right way, or the good way. Good people start their work early! Good students study ahead of time and never cram! The right way to work is a little bit every day and have lots of time before the deadline! So no matter what the data said, I felt like I could always do better because I wasn't doing it the right way.
Now, sometimes, I cut it *very* close to the deadline. And it makes me stress, and I lose sleep, and I crash afterwards, and I'm a total crank to everyone around me. And that is a very good reason to try and start a little earlier! But "because good people always finish ahead of time" is a less good reason that invites a lot more guilt into my life.
And as I work with my own brain, and neurodiverse clients, and just the people of the world, I realize that we have a lot of shame around not doing things the "right way". So someone could be working really well, and really efficiently, prepping the two hours before a class meets, but they'll feel bad about it (despite the evidence!) because they're rushing. Or they'll take all the distractions out of a room because that's what "focus" feels like, when in fact they get the best work and thinking done while old episodes of The Great British Bake Off play in the background. Sometimes, the "good way" just doesn't work for you, and you carry this idea that even though your way is working in all the ways that count, it still isn't right.
So, I've gotten better at asking myself a few questions to get at the heart of what I want to change, and more importantly, why I want to change them. These questions can help you, too, as you do monthly reflections, or end of semester reflections, or any other kind of reflection you might want to do <3 As always, take what's useful and leave the rest!
What really worked about this (process, project, outcome)?
What didn't work as well?
How do you know it didn't work as well? What are you noticing, measuring, or noting?
What data do you have that points in a different direction, that things are working well?
What do you think would be a different or alternate way of attempting this, or a similar, task?
What do you think the advantages of the alternate way would be?
Why do you think those are advantages?
How will you know if the new way is doing what you want it to?
the dance between accountability and compassion
Sometimes, I get in my own head. Life happens to me, like it happens to all of us. I had a bit of a slow start to this year. And all I could think about was how I didn't have the time for any of the hard stuff because it was the new year and I had to start working on my new year goals. If I didn't get a good start in January, I'd be off all year and if I didn't hold myself accountable, no one else was going to. I was so worried that if I took care of myself and showed myself some compassion for what were pretty understandable feelings, I would fall into a pattern of only ever excusing myself out of important things. I wouldn't do anything because I cut myself too much slack.
Many of my clients struggle with this same thing, and in fact, it could be part of the human condition:
"If I take the day off to heal from being sick, what if I never get back to work?"
"If I let myself extend this deadline, what will stop me from extending all my other deadlines until deadlines have no meaning to me?"
"If I don't hold myself to my high standard all the time, I will permanently lower my standards and that will be a disaster."
One of my favorite Instagram Follows - Lisa Olivera - is a therapist and last week, she posted a bunch of really interesting prompts showing how self-compassion and accountability can, in her words, dance together. As she says, "Offering ourselves compassion while also being willing to take care of ourselves through being accountable to our well-being and our needs is a really nourishing way of reparenting, caring for, and also getting shit done." Here are some of my favorite examples she points to:
Self-compassion: It makes so much sense why this is so challenging for me.
Accountability: What next step feels in my reach to make it a little bit easier in this moment?
Self-compassion: It's okay to need a break sometimes. It's okay to need rest and time off/time out.
Accountability: When I feel ready, what would feel supportive in getting started again?
Self-compassion: It's understandable that I forget to use my self-soothing (Katy note: and also work, productivity, and planning!) tools at times.
Accountability: Is there anything that would make them more accessible to me when I need them?
We can realize that we're human, and offer ourselves some understanding and compassion for that AND also be looking for ways to support ourselves. We can have off days and not beat ourselves up for that AND also look at what caused those days and what might feel more supportive next time. We can take a break when we need it AND commit to checking in with ourselves about when we're ready to work again.
The point is that the shame and the guilt and the pain and the fear that we add to the situation doesn't usually support us. It adds sticky feelings to the hard stuff we're already going through. What if we tried to be accountable to our goals, our values, ourselves AND understood that we wil necessarily do that in a human way because we are humans?
We've all got this - not in spite of the fact that we're human, but because of it.
don't take my advice: productivity, inclusivity, and shame
One of the things that keeps me up at night as a coach is: I cannot possibly give fully inclusive advice or recommendations. I can try and write up my thoughts, tools, and resources, with the most generous framing as possible, and seek out experiences unlike my own to consider and test my strategies, but it still won't work for everyone. And when your goal is to HELP ALL THE GRAD STUDENTS, this can be so frustrating.
Academia is obsessed, just like the rest of the world, with productivity, life hacks, systems, and strategies to make work easier. But the message underneath all of those tools (which I peddle too!) is the idea that time not spent working is time wasted, except for the time set aside purposefully for self-care, which should be productive in restoring you to enable more work. We are all looking for ways to get more done ever more quickly, so that we can do more.
Just imagine: you've accomplished all of your work that you set out to do for the week. Isn't there a little pull to do more, to get ahead, so you can fit in extra work? If I'm ahead on my dissertation chapter revisions, I'll have more time to work on that journal submission. And if I publish three journal articles while I'm a grad student, I'll have more time as a new junior faculty member to work on my book manuscript, so that I'll already have a second book under contract by the time my tenure file is being assembled - if not my second book!
Even our hobbies need to be productive! At first, when I started knitting, I enjoyed the pure learning curve of it all. But once I was even a little proficient, I started to wonder about making it productive. As I was sitting, watching a Ken Burns documentary, I was looking at my knitting and I caught myself thinking "well, if I can knit a blanket this quickly and they're of high enough quality, and the yarn costs this much, how much reasonably could I sell these for?" Here was this hobby, that I explicitly started because I had a bad habit of working on my computer while watching TV at night, and I can't knit and write content at the same time, and I was still feeling an urge to make that time profitable.
I want to be clear - if you feel called to get ahead in your work so you have more flexibility - go for it! It feels great to have choices about how to spend your time, rather than only ever working on the thing that was due four days ago. And if you want to spend your down time knitting the world's most awesome hats, or sewing up cosplay outfits, and selling them, do it! Side gigs are awesome! But if you get real quiet, and you hear from yourself that the real reason you're obsessed with efficiency and usefulness is that you believe your time only matters if it's spent in service of your future goals, I'd encourage you to question why that is.
As a coach, I've dedicated myself to learning how and why people use their time, and how they wish it would be different. I believe strongly in the power of doing things that do not serve your professional goals, on purpose and regularly, to reflect in your schedule that not every part of your life has to serve your professional advancement. I also often discuss the importance of self-care. Not necessarily the bubble bath and treat yourself shopping sprees, although those have their place, but the sleep, diet, movement, fun, and creativity that can so often fall by the wayside. But, the constant "self care is important!" refrain can be alienating and guilt inducing as often as it is helpful.
Early on in my Twitter career, someone thoughtfully asked me what they were supposed to do when there was literally no time in a busy, full life for the time intensive self-care strategies I was championing. The guilt was overwhelming, they said - knowing that all these things could help, but not having the resources to enact them, and still having to deal with burnout, exhaustion, etc. Ultimately, advice like that was alienating - good for someone, but not for everyone.
I replied then, and stand by the idea now, that in some circumstances, self-care is ignoring advice, however well intentioned. If you know, in your gut, that the way someone is suggesting just won't work, let it go. Stop trying to force yourself into a habit, routine, technique, or strategy that was created by someone else. Their life isn't your life, so it's okay if what works for them just won't work for you.
So, don't always take my advice. Or anyone else's. Take the time to know what is important in your life, in your value system, in your future planning, and then only use the strategies that align with those things. Use your time wisely, but define what that means for yourself.
self care week: evolution
for a long time, the foundation of my self care practice was yoga. if i was going to yoga regularly, there was a strong chance that most other things were working well.
and then i moved, and struggled to find a studio that fit well with me (ie, wasn’t racist and appropriative!). i tried a few different video yoga things, and could never found one that totally resonated for a sustained practice. nothing seemed to work and all along the way, i was moving less and feeling worse and worse about it.
and then it dawned on me that i didn’t have to practice yoga in order to move my body. i could try something else.
so now, i go and do exercise classes in a space where i feel comfortable and welcome (well, right now i take those classes in my office as they’re live streamed from the studio because i’m still not ready to be in an enclosed room with people i don’t know without masks!) i stretch really consciously to make sure i don’t get too tight. i run sometimes, slowly. sometimes i go for a long walk, and i really like to hike. it looks different, but the foundation - the part where i move my body - is the same.
there might be things that need to evolve in your self care. you might have been able to get up every morning and write from 8 to 10, but that was before your house was full of your entire family, all the time, and that’s exactly when they need support to get settled into their days. you might have been really good at stopping at the gym on your way home from the lab, but now that you lab at home, or lab during a late shift, it’s harder to do that.
it can be really hard to build a new routine and set of skills up - there’s a reason that we don’t always jump for joy at the idea of having to make huge changes in any part of our lives. it can feel really, really frustrating to have something that really WORKS for you only to have your life change, and then that thing needs to change and you’re back at the drawing board.
but our lives change all the time. so it makes sense that what we need to support ourselves changes all the time. if we let go of the idea (in stages! it’s a tough one!) that we fix problems once, and then we carry out the solutions perfectly until the end of time, then it can feel a little easier to be in a state of flux. some things are stable. some things are morphing. we’re always moving. we’re always taking care.
self care week: making it easy
as is well known in many of my circles, i love potato chips. i eat a lot of them, i think they’re great, i have definite opinions on brands, and flavors.
i’ve been known to eat potato chips for the “first draft” of lunch. sometimes i go downstairs to eat and i’m so overwhelmed by the choices and the work it would take to, you know, make something, that i just eat chips.
i call it the first draft of lunch because it invariably causes me to be hungry and cranky and thirsty in 45 minutes, so i have to go downstairs and deal with myself and i have even less capacity to do it.
however, in the last few months, i have added a step in my morning start up routine, where i list three or four things i could have for lunch in my planner. it doesn’t work 100% of the time (morning me is very optimistic about how excited i’ll be about salads) but it makes it so much less overwhelming to have something to choose from, instead of having to just invent lunch every day.
and here in lies today’s self care lesson:
it’s easier to do it if it’s easy.
put your workout or work clothes by the bed
block twitter or instagram
sleep with your phone out of arm’s reach so that you can’t roll over and scroll
meal prep, or have a list of things you can easily make with what you have on hand
have a list of things you could do to be good to your body
set alarms for meals and to remind you to drink water
schedule things and put them in your calendar to automatically repeat so you don’t have to remember every month or week
have a hard off time at night so you don’t have to decide when you’re done working
leave notes about where you want to start working the next day
have set or usual days off or “appointment days” so you know when you’re free to make plans or go to the doctor
if something works really well, make a note and try it again
and if you’re trying to build a new habit, make it as easy as you can - you have to nurture the new things until they’re ready to fly free, aka, you have enough data to believe it really does help.
self care week: community as self care
we all have a lot of parts.
do you have places where parts of yourself are seen and heard and recognized?
community does important work. community reminds us that we’re not alone. community helps us spread the burden of the work and the rewards of the work around so that we can do and celebrate more.
but we often don’t give ourselves enough time, or enough credit, for the hard work of building, maintaining, and even ending communities. lots of us have been socialized into thinking that this is less important behavior, especially the femme and female folks among us. many people think that this is something that can happen, and is great, but should come after the more productive parts of our day.
i challenge you today to think about some of the following things:
what communities are you a part of?
what identities, roles, aspects, skills, and beliefs are represented in those spaces?
what work do you do to find, start, nurture, and maintain these spaces?
what benefits do you get out of being with these colleagues, peers, friends, comrades, and connections?
what work is easier to do in community?
what things would be easier if there were more people who were invested in you, your work, or your ideas?
whose spaces, ideas, projects, goals, and values are you investing in through your community work?
what would change if you reframed the work you do to “network” as work that you do to build community?
academia, implicitly and sometimes explicitly, tells us that we need to produce all the time. our connections must be strategic. we must move forward with every task we complete. but so often, this turns academia into a place where actual community connection and work is replaced by strategic networking:
“I’ll read this but only because it could be useful to teach with.”
“I’ll join that project because it’s good for my CV.”
“I’ll say yes to this request because then they’ll owe me.”
“I’ll do this so I can get a job one day.”
“I don’t have time to help unless it moves me forward too.”
of course, we have to be strategic sometimes. doing things because they help you is a fine reason to do things. but if we only ever view our spaces as places to take from, or our connections as a place to extract resources, we never normalize the work of putting back in. we can come to view everything as something to maximize, instead of environments where we both give and take.
community is more than just networking. community is hard work. but community can care for you in a way that LinkedIn never could.
self care week: active vs. passive rest
even when i was little, i was bad at taking naps. i was often put in my room for “quiet time”, encouraged to sleep, but invariably i spent time in my room making up fantasy worlds for my stuffed animals and talking to myself.
to this day, i have trouble watching TV without doing something else (knitting, coloring) alongside. i have to work REALLY hard at meditating, i’m more likely to have a bad day if i don’t have a plan and just “go with the flow”, and settling down enough to take a nap is impossible unless i’m actively unwell.
so when (well-meaning) people tell me to rest, i used to get really mad:
I CANNOT BE STILL AND REST LOL i should just keep working right?
and then it occurred to me one day while i was in a fitness class that i could use the term “active recovery” and frame some of my activities as rest. because it isn’t true that i never rest, it’s just that in order for me to truly unplug, i usually need to have my mind and/or my body engaged in something.
when you’re working out, active recovery is something that you do during a physically strenuous activity that keeps your heartrate up and your body in motion between sets or repetitions - like jumping jacks in between your weight sets. passive recovery is something that you do to bring your heart rate down - like stretching on the floor afterwards. both have uses. both are important.
some of the things that i have found that feel restful (ie, i feel recharged afterwards and ready for what’s happening next, instead of depleted) that fall into a more active category:
cleaning my house
gardening
reading fiction books
walks with podcasts or audiobooks
hiking
workout classes (where i’m not in charge of what we do! what a luxury!)
coloring
doodling
journaling
paint by numbers
knitting
cooking
time with friends and family
yoga
my list is very specific to me, of course - and is bound up in all kinds of able-bodied, class, and skin color privilege. but i stand firmly behind the concept - sometimes the things that fully engage your body and/or mind can allow you to recharge in different ways than more passive forms of resting can.
so when you’re thinking about how and where to put (more) rest into your schedule, here are some guiding questions:
when does your mind feel most engaged?
when does your body feel most engaged?
are you tuned in to the different kinds of “tired” you can be? - physically, emotionally, mentally, socially etc
what things leave you feeling clearer after you do them?
what kinds of rest leave you feeling less clear, or not as rested, after you do them?
self care week: what's your evidence?
i don’t know that i’ve ever met anyone who felt like they were taking exquisite care of themselves all the time.
most of the time, people say things like:
“i do workout pretty regularly but i’m so terrible at sleep.”
“i get enough sleep but i have 0 hobbies or interests that are active right now.”
“i eat pretty well but i can’t remember the last time i was ahead of the game on my work.”
and at the heart of it is often the fact that we need to do so much to keep stable physically, mentally, and emotionally, and there just isn’t enough time in the world to do that and be a grad student, too. in order to do everything that you “should” as a grad student, there is always something that could be working on, something you could be reading, something you could be writing.
so where do you fit in the care you need? and how are you making those decisions?
i have a few questions that i ask clients when we’re getting to the bottom of something like burnout, or any other situation where time is disappearing and there isn’t enough left:
where is your time going?
what informs your decisions about what you do and when?
what evidence do you have to support those decisions? where’s the data?
it’s really easy to internalize the “publish or perish” model in academia and believe that anything in your life that doesn’t directly move your work forward is at best, a distraction, and at worse, keeping you from getting a job one day. who can justify working out when the choice is “work out now or have a job later”?
but if you’re well rested, you think more clearly. you often get things done more quickly. you can switch between tasks more easily. you’re more engaged and present when you’re rested. at least if you’re me, you’re also a nicer person and more pleasant to be around.
and even if you couldn’t measure the impact of care on your work:
you still deserve to care for yourself.
so this week, think about how you can get some evidence for the file entitled “reasons why i deserve to take care of myself despite what my brain gremlins think”. that might look like:
tracking your time to see where you are actually spending your days and nights
tracking your mood to see if it is impacted when you care for yourself
tracking your output to see if there is a connection between how and when you work, and what you do to take care of yourself
keeping track of what thoughts come up when you think about taking care of yourself - “i don’t have enough time”, “after i’m done i will” and the like
the more evidence you have, the easier it is to make data-based decisions about your schedule, and what you include as non-negotiable in your daily, weekly, and monthly routines. the more evidence you have, the more you can see your own patterns and start to address them. this isn’t a magical solution - knowing that sleeping more helps you focus won’t magically make your to-do list shrink. but knowing that sleeping more helps you focus might make it easier to say, at 9 pm - “it’s time to wind down, this can wait until tomorrow” rather than pushing through until 1 am. and that makes a difference.
Ways to be kind to yourself.
It has lovingly been pointed out to me that sometimes, I'm not so nice to myself. As my therapist says, "maybe you can show the same compassion and generosity to yourself that you give your clients." Which, RUDE, but also, that's not as easy as it sounds. Anyone who has ever been asked "would you treat a friend this way" knows that!! So we spent the majority of my session brainstorming concrete ways to be kind to myself and I thought I'd share that list in case any of it is useful for you.
Resist the thought process that says "I will do this thing to take care of myself AFTER my work is done."
Schedule in time to take care of myself, even if it is only for five minutes.
Shrug your shoulders up to your ears and let them down again to release tension at the desk.
Spend pom breaks NOT on Twitter
Use focus blockers like Forest on my phone to help me NOT scroll instagram endlessly when I could be relaxing in another way
Make plans with friends and keep them
Respect bedtime whenever possible
Literally, outloud if possible, or written down, congratulate myself for making it through hard days, even if I didn't do them (especially if I didn't do them) perfectly
Offer myself as many fresh starts as I need without numbering them
Visualize my health bar (like in a video game) and imagine filling it up with things that make me feel good
Take deep breaths
Close my door and meditate, even for 5 minutes, when I feel squirrelly
"Doing hard things feels hard, and that is NOT a sign that I don't know what I'm doing."
"I will allow myself to be intermediate at this task, because intermediate is better than not at all."
Drink water (or at least, have some water with your coffee)
Check in with people I trust about how I seem to be doing and adjust my perceptions accordingly (ie, if people I trust tell me that I'm doing okay, I try not to then say BUT YOU DON'T KNOW I AM ACTUALLY A TRASH PANDA and allow for the possibility that I am not seeing clearly)
Make a list of all the things that are working, and that I'm grateful for
"I will not punish myself in the present for choices I made in the past that I cannot fix or change. I will remind myself that I tried to make the best decisions I could with the information I had at any given time, and the best I can do is the best I can do."
"What if you tried again?"
"What would make this feel more fun?"
Writing down a list of all the reasons why a project is important
Drafting the acknowledgements for the project I'm working on to reconnect with all the people, spaces, and resources who are helping me finish it
Ten minutes to stomp my feet and listen to angry music and acknowledge that sometimes, things are really hard and that's not my fault.
Allowing myself to change the plans or the schedule if I need to
Communicating clearly with people about when things need to change so that I am not worried about people "catching me" being late with something
Not cancelling plans or activities that are "fun" or "frivolous" or extra just because I didn't make a goal or meet a deadline.
Visualizing all my "tough energy" - anxiety, sadness, frustration, anger at myself, guilt, shame, whatever - as a cute monster that wants my attention. I ask it to sit in the chair next to me as I write, or better yet, wait outside of my office until I'm done and then I can attend to it. But it's really hard when that is sitting on my lap as I work. So I literally picture pulling a chair up next to me and asking it to sit there. It works!
Being kind to ourselves is such a hard thing to put into practice because it's a very big abstract idea that needs to be done in many, tiny, concrete ways.
The danger zone.
Anyone who has a child, or who has ever babysat, knows the look. It's the look someone gets when they're tired, or hungry, and you have only a few minutes to intervene and provide the missing element before a real nasty tantrum sits in. Sometimes you catch it in time, and sometimes you don't, but over time, you come to figure out the warning signs, and the conditions under which those tantrums happen. Then, you're a few steps closer to figuring out how to avoid them all together.
Now, the brain of a PhD student (or any adult, really!) is not that much farther along the evolutionary track than your average toddler. We might have more tools to describe how we're doing, and more resources to meet our own needs, but we all melt down sometimes. What if you spent some time in the next few weeks thinking through what your "tantrums" look like, what your warning signs are, how you can prevent them systematically, and how you address them in the moment?
For me, my tantrums are often, but not always, caused by fatigue/exhaustion/brain fog. I have a chronic illness, so those are sometimes symptoms of my disease, sometimes they're symptoms of the fact that I stayed up late watching Netflix. A typical tantrum progression looks like this:
Notice that I'm tired/foggy, apply coffee
Feel like a god for 15 minutes, decide that I can overcome my body with the force of my mind (and coffee)
Skip lunch/snack because coffee suppresses my appetite and I'm in the zone, and then eat quickly when it's too late, or eat things that don't make me feel great.
Stare at computer while it slides out of focus, become increasingly irritated (not with myself, but with the cruel universe that invented the idea of computers, or the concept of Wednesdays)
Look up at the clock, realize that three hours have passed, confirm that in fact, 10-15% of lots of tasks are finished, and no single task has been checked off.
Meltdown
So now, I try and pay attention to those warning signs, and intervene at any of those steps. For example, here are those steps again, with the "corrective actions":
Notice that I'm tired/foggy, apply coffee
Try hot water! Or a lower caffeine solution.
If coffee is a must, alternate coffees with water. Cap at 2.
Schedule a hard cut off time for the day, a nap, or plan for time off later if today's schedule doesn't allow for it.
Feel like a god for 15 minutes, decide that I can overcome my body with the force of my mind (and coffee)
Remind myself that I am not a god, make sure that I do not cancel plans to take care of myself
Skip lunch/snack because coffee suppresses my appetite and I'm in the zone, and then eat quickly when it's too late, or eat things that don't make me feel great.
Do not skip lunch! Make a list on post it note, not in kitchen, of possible foods and choose best options based on grocery/time/appetite restrictions.
Bring snacks up to office to eat during pom breaks.
Stare at computer while it slides out of focus, become increasingly irritated (not with myself, but with the cruel universe that invented the idea of computers, or the concept of Wednesdays)
Go for a walk.
Have a desk dance party.
Switch to lower brain activity tasks.
Look up at the clock, realize that three hours have passed, confirm that in fact, 10-15% of lots of tasks are finished, and no single task has been checked off.
Use pom timer to have natural places to reevaluate progress
Close tabs / programs with other tasks in them
Use extensions to block unhelpful websites to make it easier to stay on task
Meltdown
Apply self-compassion.
Change locations
Make a plan for tomorrow, or later that day.
So just like it's important to make a schedule that works for you, it's equally important to know your own danger zones, where the pressure to stick to the schedule might actually be causing more harm than good. You're just a curious, hungry, tired toddler under all that grad school regalia - it's okay to take care of yourself.
So you're more efficient. Now what?
Congratulations! You've made some changes to your work/life/tools/thinking/way of existing and you're getting more done in less time than you used to. You can grade a little quicker, write a little faster, submit things a little bit sooner.
Or, if you're not quite there yet, imagine that I have gifted you five extra hours in every week moving forward.
How would you spend them?
No really, imagine how you'd spend them.
When I did this exercise for myself, I came up with three work projects I have been struggling to get launched. Did you say something related to your work as well?
Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with being more efficient at work things so you can work more.
There is a problem when you have internalized the idea that the only worthwhile use of your time is working.
So as you explore ways to be more focused, schedule better, plan more efficiently, and work smarter, also turn a critical eye to where you start to spend some of that newly freed up time. Are you doing the things that fulfill you, that advance you, that enrich you, that line up with what you value, what you find important? And if not, why is that?
Self care gives you choices.
I like to be able to choose things. For instance, I like to be able to choose between chicken nuggets or a salad for lunch (or if you're in Pittsburgh, you put nuggets and fries and shredded cheese and ranch on that salad, but that's a whole separate issue!) I like to be able to decide what I want to work on. I like to decide what activities I do in my free time. I like to be able to decide what goals best fit my vision for the future.
I like to think about self care as practices that help me have choices. Because when I am run down, or burnt out, or just trying to survive, I have much fewer options. For example:
I pass out on the couch when I didn't mean to
I take 2 hour naps randomly in the middle of the day when I don't have time to
Everything is due tomorrow so I have no choice about what I work on
I don't have the option to do activities that recharge me because I have so much work that is due now, or soon
I have less options for my food because I don't have time to prep my own meals, or my choices are limited
When I thought about self care as bubble baths and shopping trips and things that I did because I deserved them after a period of work, I swung wildly from overindulgence to austerity. I could never get the balance right if my self care was only reactive; if I had to earn self care by working, then I either held out until I reached a stopping point, or I cared for myself "early" and felt guilty about it.
But I am now trying to think of my self care as something that is proactive: I take care of myself in the present so that in the future, I have choices.
I prioritize sleep, trying to get at least 7 hours a night, so that my chronic illness doesn't have another reason to flare (it does that all on it's own!) I also do this to manage my fatigue during the day, so when I sit down to work, my brain cooperates.
I try to work in small, sustainable ways so that no one day of work leaves me so exhausted that I have to recover for multiple days afterwards.
I work really hard to have an awareness of who needs what from me when, so that deadlines don't sneak up on me and I can best use the limited resources of time and energy in a conscious way.
I try to meal prep so that I have choices in the fridge that make my body feel good, and that I save money by avoiding last minute hangry takeout ordering.
I schedule time with friends and family members so that even if my work isn't "done" I can still be with people who care about me, and who recharge me. Bonus points on this one because if you make the plans, you can have more influence on the time!
It can be hard to break long standing habits of overwork, especially when so much of academic culture is not only overworking yourself, but performing that misery as a sign of your dedication. It was easier for me to "take time" to take care of myself if I viewed it as a future investment. By taking care of myself now, I give myself choices later. And choices help me feel like this is a life that I am living on purpose, not just one that I'm reacting to, crisis by crisis.
Some thoughts on working in a fast-paced news cycle.
I have sat down four or five times today to do some work. But then, I couldn't stop reading the news.
It's been a near constant loop of Twitter, various long form pieces, discussions with friends, televised news, and back again. It's been like this, on and off, for years at this point, but this week it's been a particular problem. Here's how it goes for me:
Work on something, or be on a client call, or otherwise in the flow of work
Open Twitter to see what's happened in the x time I've been away from the news
Become upset about what I read in the news
Vent to friends about being upset
Read more news to be well informed about how upset I should be, take in as many different perspectives as I can
Feel guilty about ignoring the work to read the news
Vow to not open Twitter for two hours, and instead catch up with longer form journalism at the end of the work day.
Feel guilty about spending an hour catching up on the news.
Decide to take a "news free day" tomorrow
Immediately feel guilty about taking a "news free day" because that's a privileged position that many cannot hold
Get back to work on something, repeat (with all sorts of mini loops between various steps in the cycle thrown in for fun!)
I think for me, at least two distinct things are happening:
1. News is breaking in the current climate fast enough that I have incentive and reason to believe I need to be checking constantly in order to be well informed.
2. I don't always know how my feelings about the news (and my larger, human life embedded in the world) relate to my work, and vice versa.
Number 1 is easy enough to address. I try and tell myself (and remind my friends) that the current culture of journalism is built on the idea of continually breaking news, and that the stream is as much informative as it is commercial. In other words, yes, new news is happening all the time, but the feeling that I have to check it is a part of a business strategy, as well. Just as limiting my time spent watching Marvel movies does not make me less of an MCU fan, my identity as "informed citizen" does not come with a "time on Twitter" requirement. I can be informed and still get my work done, and trust that I will be able to find a condensed version of the day's events in several places that I can access on my own time.
But Number 2 is trickier. Here are some things that I have yelled into my slack room with my friends this week:
WHO CARES ABOUT WORK IT IS ALL MEANINGLESS IN THE FACE OF THIS NEWS CYCLE
who am I to act like this whole thing is about me?
I AM TOO UPSET TO WRITE
what kind of self-obsessed nonsense person uses the news as a reason they can't work today??
I swing from having such strong reactions to the news that it makes my work seem meaningless in comparison, to guilting myself for having any reaction in the first place. And I see advice from all sides on academic Twitter - "I never read the news because it just distracts me!" "Not reading the news is a crime! You have to be informed!" And, as per usual, the answer is somewhere in the middle.
When my work is feeling meaningless, and that feels like a big barrier to working on it, I like to reconnect with my motivation - why did I start this work? What will it change? Who will it impact? Usually, I can look around and find that golden thread of alignment between what I believe is important, and what the project sets out to do, and hold tight on to that. Maybe it's the impact you'll have on your students. Maybe it's the communities that will read and benefit from your work. Maybe it's your belief that knowledge creation moves societies forward. Whatever your thread is, find it and hold on tight.
I can't tell you how much news you should read, because I don't know you, your body, your history, your beliefs, your values. I can tell you that it's worth your time to come up with a strategy that helps you manage your reaction to the day's events, so that you can control when and where you engage with it (for the most part. Darn you, news blasts!!) I can tell you that it can be an act of self care to manage how and why and when you interact with the broader world.
It’s enough to make you want to hide.
But I also encourage you to NOT tamp down your emotional responses to the world around you in "service of the work." The stereotype of an academic is a person, removed and above, of the world they study; observing, analyzing, judging, but rarely participating. But you are a living breathing person, who must live and work in this world. To be in the world, and of the world, is also to the feel the world, regardless of how it "distracts" from the work. The world makes the work happen and gives it meaning. Don't let the culture of academia give you permission to abdicate responsibility for being within the world. Just take care to interact, as you do with your work, mindfully, and in accordance with what's important to you as a whole human, not just a grad student.
Yes, there is a way to rest better.
I was working with a client recently who was concerned about taking a planned vacation for fear they might disrupt "momentum" in their writing. We discussed strategies for staying connected, of course, but I mostly encouraged taking the vacation without reservation - rest when you've scheduled rest, no matter what the work is like.
I believe there are three main types of rest:
Collapse - The rest that happens when you drive forward and forward until your body literally shuts off. Think falling asleep on the couch when you thought you were reading, or when you have to take a week of couch time because your sniffles that you ignored turned into a massive sinus infection. You might feel better physically, but not restored.
Distracted Rest - This kind of rest happens when you take a break (pre-scheduled, accidental, forced, whatever) but your mind doesn't break with you. You could feel guilty for not doing enough to "earn" a break, or you could be stuck somewhere without your materials and feel bad for not working when you could have. Maybe you're out somewhere with family/friends/partners and you want to be with them but also, your work is on your mind. This kind of "rest" feels frustrating (maybe also for the people you're with!)
Actual Rest - This kind of rest happens when your brain and body are on the same page. You might leave your phone at home, maybe you read books for pleasure, maybe you just take a walk around the block with your favorite podcast. But, you feel rejuvenated afterwards because you let yourself rest, body and brain.
If it isn't clear, I think you should aim for actual rest whenever you can. Sometimes, you can't avoid collapse - sickness, deadlines, life itself can all make us need to close up shop physically. But I encourage my clients whenever I can (and try hard to remind myself) that we can rest and recharge effectively without taking a week-long phone free vacation. It can be as simple as reframing that time as "rest" and not "time not working."
I often hear clients tell me that they are using a night off or a nap as a "reward" for hitting a milestone, and I get the impulse to use these chances away from work as motivation to make sure the work gets completed. But the message that reinforces is that we are only "allowed" to rest or relax when the work is completed, not simply because rest and lives away from academia make us healthier and more balanced. We don't earn rest - we need it. And if when we do get a chance to take a break, so many of us stop ourselves from fully enjoying it by feeling guilty, or otherwise staying hooked into the work and not into the fun activity.
So if you have something scheduled and you feel behind? I will almost always advise you to go anyway, and do your best to fully enjoy it. Put your phone away, let your emails sit until morning and be present where you are. Even if your work isn't done, sometimes the time away can be recharging, and you'll attack the work the next morning with a renewed energy level and clarity. A healthy balance between rest and work can help to keep you healthier and happier. But, it even makes the work better, supporting a sustainable pace rather than a cycle of "grind and collapse" ruled by deadlines. So rest up, work better, feel better!
Additive adjustments - shifting your routine
I spoke on a panel last week about self-care as a self-employed person as part of my own accountability/networking/community group at Self Employed PhD. The conversation, with the brilliant Rebecca of Enderby Yoga was wide-ranging and thought-provoking, and we touched on how to start building a routine and practice of self-care. Many clients I speak to feel overwhelmed by the idea of self care; they would like to eat better, sleep better, be more balanced, etc, but do not know where to start, or feel intimidated by the Instagram ideal of a "healthy" life. I offered my theory of "additive adjustments" to the group, a theory born out of years of monitoring my own self-care.
Everyone is busy. Many of us look at our schedules and think - I do not have time for that extra hour of x, y, or z. I could never squeeze in that new activity three times a week. I do not have time to [cook, clean, organize] anything, I only have time for what I'm doing right now. So the first instinct is to "clear the decks": eliminate parts of your routine that aren't working, drop all non-essential obligations so you can "focus" on the new routine.
For example, when my clients commit to "writing more", I often see them try to arrange their schedules so that they can have eight (or 10 or 12) uninterrupted hours of writing. They will cancel social functions, drop gym memberships, stop coming to campus just so that they can sit and write. And more often than not, those eight hours are not productive. They're marked with the anxiety and expectation of what eight "perfect" hours can produce, and how far the actual output was from the ideal. Subtracting everything so that you can focus, in my experience, never works.
Instead, I encourage my clients to keep their schedules the way they are, and start adding things. Add in a 15 minute meditation session before your writing block. Add in two hours of planning out and preparing meals so that you can eat healthier all week. Start the morning with an hour of yoga, and then start your day of academic tasks. Add in the pieces of self care that you feel are lacking, and see how it effects the rest of your day, rather than taking away activities, habits, or tools.
Taking care of yourself, even in small ways, often has a ripple effect. But it is hard to see those changes, and get the data, if you have cleared all the other obligations from your schedule. So adding in small, manageable self-care practices can be a low-stakes way to move towards a more balanced daily routine without making drastic changes. Small changes let you experiment with different self-care practices without building up unrealistic expectations. Like our professional lives, self-care is a process of experimentation, adjustment, and refinement; approaching all of it from a viewpoint of "this can only add to my life" will help it to feel playful and supportive.
Energy in // Energy out
I have had several conversations about self care this month, and one idea kept coming up over and over again: how much self-care does a person need? I get this question from people who are on the self-care train and want to know if they're doing enough/the right amount/the right kind of self-care. I hear it from people who are suspicious of self-care and quick to judge what they deem to be indulgent or frivolous activities they see others taking part in. And I hear it in my own head, when I'm making my schedule for the day or week and trying to decide what to prioritize.
Personally, I get frustrated (as a habit-bound, routine-loving person with minor control issues) when my self-care routines and practices do not work the way I expect them to, or when factors outside my control prevent me from using my tools. For example, for the last six weeks I have had a harmless cyst in my left wrist, which was symptom-free unless I was putting weight onto that hand, something that I don't normally do unless I'm in a yoga class. So for six weeks I was not practicing regularly, or using the indoor rowing machine that I also love, and I started to see the ripple effects. I was edgier than normal, and having trouble sticking to other habits (sleeping well, eating well, getting out of bed easily, etc.) In a nutshell, I was out of balance, and I had to find ways to rebalance because....
Energy In = Energy Out
At first glance, this can seem kind of woo-woo, but hang in there with me. If the goal of self-care, or wellness, is to be a balanced person, performing well in all aspects of your life, then this equation can be a useful way to visualize that balance. Energy means something different to everyone, but on its base level, it simply means paying attention to what fills you up, and what drains you. This is obviously individual - some people need big social gatherings in order to feel connected, and other people can spend their entire socializing energy allowance in 20 minutes of small talk. So you have to pay attention to what makes you buzz, or groan, and work from that starting point - try using these steps to get a sense of where you are, and where you could adjust.
WHERE IS YOUR ENERGY LEVEL RIGHT NOW?
First things first, you have to have your baseline. There are lots of ways to do this - journalling, charting your energy levels on a graph, or using a phone app to track your mood. But the more fine-grained you can get your data, the better. What makes you feel better? What makes you feel worse? Where are you at overall? Are there patterns over the course of the week, the month? Do things shift for you seasonally?
You're looking to see where you're starting from - do you have so much energy that you're feeling kind of manic, moving from task to task without completing any? Is your excess energy showing up in difficulty falling asleep, or paying attention/being present during relaxing times? Or are you low on energy: having trouble getting up in the morning? No motivation for any tasks? Avoiding contact with other people? Using caffeine to focus?
THINGS TO TRY IF YOUR ENERGY LEVEL IS HIGH
Add in some cardio, or try switching your type of cardio up if you've already got a regular exercise routine. Sometimes physically exhausting the body can help to calm the mind.
Experiment with meditation - I love the Headspace (free for 10 minute sessions, pay for everything else) or Stop, Breathe, Think (more free options with some pay to unlock packs) apps but just sitting quietly and listening to the sounds in the coffeeshop for a minute can help too. Think of meditation as a way to get to know your "base brain" - the brain that is underneath all the thoughts. Being able to tune into that with more ease will help for those times when the thoughts seem to be moving quickly.
Schedule some time to talk about your research/work/ideas. Sometimes having someone else work with your ideas, regardless of how formed or formal they are, can give them a place to "land." When they're out of your brain, you can see them more clearly and feel less worried about "losing" them.
Work on a new, completely unrelated project. I love reading fiction, and always having a (non-work related) book in progress helps me to channel some of my excess curiosity and need to learn new things. I also love my paint-by-numbers for getting out some of my restlessness.
THINGS TO TRY IF YOUR ENERGY LEVEL IS LOW
Schedule in some purposeful alone time. There is a big difference between "alone time" and time when you happen to be alone. Scheduling time to spend with yourself, doing something that you like (a walk around your neighborhood, a bubblebath with a book, taking yourself to your favorite coffeeshop without your laptop) can help recharge from social or intellectual exhaustion.
Take a look at your daily schedule to see if you can even out the work sessions. I know many writers that spend the first part of a week/month working slowly or unevenly on their projects, only to "compensate" for that with marathon work sessions when deadlines approach. Try moving some low-impact tasks earlier - formatting your citations, reading new lit in the field, writing conference abstracts - to get your head in your intellectual workspace and smooth out the cycle of no work/all the work.
Optimize your work space. Doodle out your new favorite motivational quote, clean off your desk, reorganize your digital files, or try out a new coffeeshop. Investing in the physical space where you work can be a subtle reminder of the value of your work - and be a low-impact way of spending time with your work when you're too burned out to do much of anything else.
Make a gratitude list. I fought against this suggestion for years, thinking that I was already a person with a sense of my privilege, advantages, and blessings. But, starting my work session making a list of things I was grateful for professionally (academic Twitter, writing group members, software that makes my life easier, etc) reminded me that even if I was drained, some systems were working, and I did have resources and tools at my disposal.
MY SELF-CARE DOESN'T LOOK LIKE YOURS
I know many people who spend hours on the weekend grinding on their side-gigs, getting up early and going to bed late and producing massive amounts of work, only to show up Monday morning for their "regular" job rested and energized. By the time my weekend comes, I often need time alone in my bathtub to recharge from writing and coaching and connecting all week. If it gives you energy, and fills you up in ways that you need, then that is self-care. If it helps you settle down, feel more balanced, and less restless, then that is also self-care. Taking the time to know where you are - high energy, low energy, or somewhere in between - can help you figure out what you need and when to take best care of yourself. But everyone deserves to feel good, and feel balanced, no matter where you're starting from.
It all comes down to energy in and energy out - making a conscious effort to balance the equation, no matter how that looks for you - will help keep you balanced, and the more you can stay balanced the more you can avoid the cycle of burnout and rebuild that has become normalized in academic (and wider) culture.