Finding Your Rhythm in a World out of Sync, part 1.

A different path to balance.

A few weeks ago, on my morning walk, I saw small bunches of tiny purple crocus blooms poking up from the cold ground. I’m not so easily fooled. April is a big tease in this part of the world. One morning it’s sunny and little buds pop up. By afternoon they are smothered in snow.

All the same, I couldn’t help myself. My spirit soared.

For the last two weeks, I’ve felt like a bear waking from hibernation. I’ve been burrowed up here in my writing perch wearing yoga pants, wrapped in a blankie, my butt glued to the chair.

For me, seasonal transitions often come with a kind of grumpiness. I listen to the low growl of my spirit. It tells me my body wants to move. It’s ready for a new gear. It craves sunshine, the outdoors, and connection.

I am learning to pay closer attention to these signals. When I let nature’s rhythms guide my life, nature delivers. Adopting a more natural rhythm and pace in my work has delivered the single greatest boost to my creativity, productivity, and general well-being. 

Learn the rhythm of you.

Try this.

Put your fingers on your wrist until you can feel your pulse. Take a moment and feel it. You can almost hear it repeat – I am. I am. I am.

Now follow your breath. Don’t try to control it. Simply observe it. Again, notice the rhythm, like waves on a shoreline. Steady cycles of expansion and contraction happening unnoticed every moment of your life.

Now look for the sun. Where is it in its journey across the sky? Sun rise, sun set, light and dark. Waking and sleeping every 24 hours.

These rhythms are not distinct and isolated. They are deeply connected.

Work with your ultradian rhythms. 

Dr. Nathaniel Kleitman, recognized as the father of modern sleep research, discovered that our bodies cycle through distinct phases of brain activity during sleep. Kleitman proposed that these brain patterns follow a similar Basic Rest Activity Cycle (BRAC) during waking hours. 

These are a type of ultradian rhythm that follow patterns of high frequency brain activity for 90 to 120 minutes followed by lower-frequency brain activity for 20 to 30 minutes. 

When we pay attention, we experience them as periods of peak energy and alertness followed by troughs of more diffuse focus, mind wandering, fatigue, or fogginess.

Our tendency when we start to feel a wandering of our attention or a sudden dip in energy is to grab more caffeine. It’s the point when we think, “Why am I so tired? Or, what’s wrong with me?” Or worse, we ignore the signals and just keep pushing past our fatigue.

In her deep dive into ultradian rhythms, popular health and science writer, Pilar Gerasimo says, “These are signs that your body is working exactly as it should be.” The key, she says, is to heed these signs and take a restorative break as soon as you notice your attention and energy begin to wane.

There’s a significant upside to organizing your work around natural spikes and troughs of energy throughout the day.

You may find that you can achieve more in less time with less effort. This is what employees at Wachovia Bank discovered when they participated in a study conducted by Tony Schwartz, author and CEO of The Energy Project, and his colleague Catherine McCarthy.

Schwartz and McCarthy reported on the study and its results in a 2007 Harvard Business Review article.  They followed 106 employees who were given training in how to better manage their energy at work. The training promoted strategies such as taking periodic restorative breaks throughout the day. Following these protocols, study participants actually worked fewer hours and performed better than employees in a control group. Further they reported a greater sense of well-being, greater engagement in their work, and greater personal satisfaction.

I’ve been using a variation of this approach in my own work since 2020. Observing my own daily fluctuations in energy and focus, I decided to experiment with my work schedule and habits and monitor the results.

The effects on my day-to-day productivity, long term performance, and enjoyment of my work exceeded my expectations. And because I’m a geek about tracking and monitoring stuff like this, I saw positive measurable impacts.

The key is to become a keen observer of signals from your body and take measures to respond to those signals. In other words, do your most challenging work, without interruption, when you are most alert and focused. And then, take breaks as soon as you begin to feel signs of fatigue or distraction. For me, short 15 to 20 minute outdoor walks have proven to be one of the best ways to restore my energy and focus. However, restorative breaks can take many forms from a quick nap to a healthy snack, to a run in the park. The key is to give your mind a break and to allow it to wander. In my experience, responding to email or scrolling social media is not restorative. 

Tune in to the rhythm of you. Experiment with ways to work with that rhythm. Monitor, track, and tweak.

We are all seasonal workers.

The closer you live to the earth's poles, the more dramatic the changing of the seasons.

For centuries, these seasonal changes governed our work. In many ways, they still do.

Farmers and fishers are seasonal workers. Some professions, like teaching and accounting have seasonal patterns.

I was speaking to the icemaker at our curling club recently. She and her husband work 7 days a week during curling season which runs from late September to early April. As soon as the season is over, they jump into their R.V. and play until the next September – an enviable seasonal rhythm of work and play.

Knowledge or office work can feel like it has no rhythm. It can feel like a constant thrum of meetings, messages, and deadlines. But seasons can offer everyone an opportunity to make shifts in the way they work. As the seasons change, I can feel the urge to shift into a new mode. Each season represents an opportunity for a fresh start and brings with it a unique energy. 

I try to change my work patterns with the change of seasons to take advantage of these different kinds of energy. Winter signals hibernation and deep work. This is my most intense period of writing. Spring brings more movement, renewal and reconnection and a lighter, easier cadence to my writing. Summer is a time for rest and play. And fall is a time to ramp up and gather with family.

In his essay, The Shape of Seasons, writer

Sam Sager

sums it up beautifully.

“Maybe, a big part of our desire for independence and autonomy is a longing to shape the structure of our seasons. To bring awareness and intention to its deepening path. To embrace the natural rhythms of our lives.”

Honor the seasons of life.

One of the many gifts of this season of my life is perspective.

I am old enough now to have had intimate connections across six generations. My direct contact with history begins in 1881, when my maternal grandmother was born. Mary Wells-Trueman, who was 47 when she gave birth to my mother, had a profound impact on my life. Through her stories, I got a first-person account of life at the end of the 19th century.

She told me stories of her unusual childhood at sea in a wooden sailing ship. Her father was a sea captain and when she was very young, she traveled with him around the world. She shared heartbreaking stories of losing most of her siblings to childhood illnesses that today have been eradicated or could be easily treated. Stories of becoming a nurse and practicing in Boston at the turn of the century, when most of her peers were getting married. She embodied strength, resilience and a pragmatic, easy, low drama way of being. And she lives on inside me.

Over 130 years after her birth, I held my two infant grandchildren in my arms. Growing up on stories from the end of the 19th century and watching the 21st century begin to unfold illuminates a longer generational view. At this stage, I have a visceral sense of this sweep of generations as one interconnected story. Having grandchildren has taught me about generational responsibility. It shows me my direct stake in what happens after I am gone.

Despite the reality that each generation lives out its lifespan in vastly different contexts, human beings share the same developmental rhythms. We are all connected by these rhythms. Cycles that follow the same patterns of inhale and exhale, expand and contract, birth and death.

This generational perspective is an ancient idea and one considered sacred in many cultures. But it is an idea that our culture seems to have discarded.

I believe one of the most troublesome trends in our culture is our habit of stereotyping and devaluing those who are at different life stages than we are. Sadly, the practice of naming and categorizing generations – Boomer, Gen X., Millennial, Gen Z. - has not created greater understanding but greater disconnection. We diminish the experiences of those younger than we are as immature and entitled. We downplay their unique challenges and contexts and what we can learn from them. At the same time, we ignore and disrespect the wisdom and experience of those older than we are. We dismiss entire generations as irrelevant, and outdated.

When we fail to honor each other across generations, we diminish and rob ourselves. We discard something key to our survival – the opportunity to learn, grow, and evolve as a species. We close the door on rich opportunities to learn and co-create together.

I love what octogenarian author Parker Palmer says about the value of connecting across generations in his book On the Brink of Everything.

“When young and old are connected like the poles of a battery, the power that’s released enlivens both parties and helps light up the world.”

I have come to believe that the art of thriving in this world is deeply connected to honoring these rhythms. When we allow our lives to be governed by the natural rhythms and seasons of life, we thrive. When we ignore, resist, or try to conquer them, we suffer.