Knowledge Worker Recovery
If you're a knowledge worker, entrepreneur, founder or executive and you're not spending a minimum of one hour a day in active recovery, you're missing something.
When I say active recovery, I mean in a non-stimulated, parasympathetic nervous system activating, disconnected state.
This could be: a meditation class, a yoga class, journaling, silence, meditation, sauna, ice bath, etc. etc.
This is not: listening to a podcast while making dinner, laying on the couch and watching TV, or scrolling through YouTube in bed.
The former stimulates your vagus nerve and activates your parasympathetic nervous system.
The latter continues to tap the dopamine reserves and you exhaust yourself with cognitive-loading, neurochemical-depleting, stimulative entertainment.
As corny as it sounds, anyone who spends their day on high leverage tasks for long periods of time, needs to recover like an athlete.
Here are three ways to prioritize recovery as a productive element of your day:
1. Bake it into your day – when you set your week/day, prioritize micro-recovery sessions in between activities like meditating, going for a no-phone walk, etc.
2. Compress work time, increase recovery time – the more compressed the amount of time you give to yourself to work the more you will focus on the highest priority actions and open up space for deep, uninterrupted recovery to allow you to recalibrate your energy to get more done with the time you do spend working.
3. Clear the load – active recovery works so well because it helps you to clear your allostatic (wear and tear on the body), cognitive (wear and tear on the mind) and neurochemical load. Three vital components for energy, focus and alertness.
Remember this:
1. Working more hours doesn't equal more output. Working less and recovering more does.
2. This isn't about productivity, it's about wellbeing – taking care of yourself during the thing you spend most of your time on: work.
If you spend your day working on something meaningful, you want to bring your fullest self to that work. Recovery is the #1 way to do that.