The Tiredness Trap Week 7: The Long Refuel

Writing this series has been, somewhat ironically, exhausting.

Seven weeks of going back into difficult territory. Pulling up memories I hadn’t fully examined. Putting things into words that are easier to leave unspoken. There were weeks where sitting down to write felt like too much. There was one week where it was.

I say this not as a complaint. I say it because it is true, and because this series has been about truth over performance from the beginning.

I feel a lot better as I write this final one. And that shift, the difference between then and now, is what this week is actually about.

What Recovery Feels Like

I want to be specific about this, because recovery gets described in ways that are too clean to be useful.

For me, the clearest signal is the symptoms leaving and staying gone. Not a good day. A run of days where the headaches aren’t there. Where the itching isn’t there. Where the tinnitus has quietened. Where the self-critical loop isn’t running in the background of everything.

The second signal is wanting things again. This week I caught up with some good friends. I realised, sitting there, that I hadn’t laughed like that in quite a long time. That is not a small thing. When you are depleted, the desire for connection drains away so gradually you barely notice it going. When it comes back, it feels like something being returned.

Life feels lighter. Easier. Fun happens naturally rather than being scheduled or forced. That is what a good period looks like for me. Not perfect. Not fixed. Just genuinely better.

What I’ve Learned About My Own Pattern

I’ve been through several cycles of extreme exhaustion now. Each one has different triggers. Each one, when I come out the other side, leaves me with a slightly healthier version of myself.

This cycle in particular has been about letting go of shame. The shame of not being like other people. The shame of not chasing money in the ways I used to feel I should. The slow recognition that most of my work now is for myself, on my own terms, and that this is not failure. It is, actually, exactly where I need to be.

I’ve learned that working in a small team suits me far better than striving alone. That I need clear structure in my week, with rest built in rather than bolted on as an afterthought. That being a high-performance processor means managing my energy carefully, not just my time.

Last Friday I attended a medical conference. A hundred people in a room. Fine for a while: good conversations, familiar faces, some new ones. Then the drain sets in. Saturday I was tired. Sunday, recovery. By Monday, functional again.

That used to feel like weakness. Now I just plan for it. It is not a problem to solve. It is information about how my system works.

What Restoration Actually Looks Like

I’ve been learning jazz improvisation on the piano for the past six months.

For a long time, each lesson felt like an assessment of everything I hadn’t done. The practice I’d skipped. The progress I hadn’t made. Just another thing I wasn’t doing well enough.

Then something shifted. Not the playing. The relationship to it.

Now I arrive at each lesson and just enjoy it. Have a joke with the teacher. Try things and see what happens. When I’m playing and it’s going well, half an hour can pass without me noticing. That is the flow state. That is what restoration actually feels like from the inside.

It isn’t piano specifically. It’s having something in your life that exists entirely for its own sake. Not productivity. Not output. Not performance. Just the thing itself.

The allotment does the same thing. So does exercise. So does time with the people I love when I’m actually present for it.

What I’d Say to You If You’re at the Beginning

Compassion first. It is okay to feel like this. In fact, it is useful to feel like this, because it will make you re-examine your life. Not as punishment. As information.

The practical version is simpler than it sounds. Do something fun. Move your body. Catch up with one friend. Not a plan. Not a programme. Just one small thing today that isn’t about output or achievement or being useful to someone else.

The lifestyle changes I’ve made over time: cutting processed sugar, processed food, caffeine, and alcohol including the low-alcohol versions that still contain enough to matter. Getting eight hours of sleep without negotiating with myself about it. I’ve been using 5-HTP, a natural serotonin precursor, which I’ll write about in more detail another time. These are not dramatic interventions. They add up.

Each time you come through one of these cycles, if you pay attention, you come through it slightly more yourself.

This Is Where the Series Ends. And Where the Work Begins.

Seven weeks of looking honestly at what the tiredness trap actually is. Where it came from. What it costs. And what it takes to get out.

Reading is the beginning. But understanding the pattern and changing it are not the same thing. The men I work with one to one move faster, and further, because we can look at their specific situation rather than the general picture.

If you want to do that work properly, The Grounded Mind is where it happens. It’s a 90-day one to one programme for professional men who are ready to stop managing their exhaustion and start actually recovering from it.

Email ed@mensmindgp.com with the subject line “The Grounded Mind” and I’ll tell you what’s involved.

Change One Thing

Do something today that has no purpose other than enjoyment.

Not exercise because you should. Not catching up with someone because it’s been too long. Something you actually want to do, for no reason other than that you want to do it.

Notice what that feels like.

That feeling is what you’re recovering towards.

Leave a comment below and tell me what you chose.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper, 1990.

Neff, K. Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. Morrow, 2011.

Turner, A.I. et al. Psychological stress reactivity and future health and disease outcomes. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2020.

WFSBP/ASLM Lifestyle Medicine Guidelines for Major Depressive Disorder, 2022.