Build in decompression time

As we go through our daily lives, we can see that some events are more draining than others. We can enjoy them a lot, or at least find them satisfying, but an intense meeting is going to take more energy than, say, reading a random newspaper article. Giving a speech will take more energy than a quick phone call with someone you’ve known for a while.

That’s just life. But problems arise when we try to cram too many intense events back to back. Go straight from a speech into an intense meeting and you might be making mistakes or getting annoyed by a vague response that you would have taken in stride at any other point. Too much intensity back to back in our personal lives can lead to the same problem. If you’re having a tough conversation with an older relative about driving safely, it’s going to be hard to then be patient with a kid who’s upset about something that happened at school.

The solution? Build in decompression time. This doesn’t have to be long, but you need some small way to reset between intense events. Even just 10 minutes can do a lot.

Be sure to relax

Makes sense, right? But there’s a second part to this. You have to know that those 10 minutes are for decompression, and use them appropriately. You have to do something that you know is going to allow you to hit the reset button.

So, for instance, one night recently I was running around trying to get some forms signed and emailed back to people, right after putting my little guy to bed. I knew I was about to face the next round of bedtimes, with often intense teen conversations. So I went outside for a few minutes. I did not take my phone with me so I could just let my mind wander. This did the trick much better than, say, deleting emails from my inbox — where I would have risked seeing something intense and winding up right back into intense mode.

I’ve tried to talk about this with my kids as well. This past summer, one child had been complaining about coming home from camp around 4:15 p.m., and then needing to leave for an activity twice a week at 5:15 p.m. This child noted that this felt like a long day, and it somewhat is, but I pointed out that 4:15 to 5:15 would be completely off. If this child consciously used this as decompression time — reading, drawing, hanging out in the backyard — it would feel much more relaxing than if the entire focus was on what had to happen next. An hour isn’t really a short time at all, especially when you know you’ve got an hour!

Build it in

Of course, creating space for decompression in life is easier said than done. One reason to make meetings 45 minutes or 20 minutes instead of 60 minutes or 30 minutes is that you get this time built in, even if the meeting starts a little late or runs a little long. And of course if you are running the meeting, you can make sure it starts on time and ends on time. Then, instead of immediately diving into your inbox afterwards, you can go stroll around the building in the 8 minutes until your next meeting starts. When you consciously use this time as decompression time it can feel pleasingly vast, rather than short. You can feel yourself relaxing. This is a good thing.

So today think about your schedule over the next few weeks, and think about when you’ve got your most intense events. See what kind of space you have between them. If there isn’t much, what could you do to force in a few more minutes? And if you build in those minutes, what could you do during them to hit reset? Figure this out, and you’ll perform at your best — even if your schedule is tough.

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