A recipe for relaxation: Work Mode vs Relax Mode
/By Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.
Reading time:
Summary: 4 mins
Details: 11 mins
One Sentence Summary: In some respects optimal ‘Work Mode’ is the opposite of optimal ‘Relax Mode’; for a good life I think one should become good at both ‘Work Mode’ and ‘Relax Mode’ and be able to switch easily between modes.
Relaxing = Recharging
I find the harder you work the more you need to recharge. If you have used your phone a lot, what happens to its battery? It's drained more!
If you want to get a lot done at work, then IMO you need to relax properly each day.
Relaxing in the right proportion isn’t time wasted, it helps you get more done at work!
You mean I get to (hopefully) have fun at work and I get to have fun at the end of the day relaxing AND this is the best overall thing for work output? I think it so :).
Relaxing = Setting your mind up to sleep well
One of the key things for going to sleep is not having a busy mind full of thoughts.
Working hard often means lots of thoughts about work.
One outcome I find from relaxing well is getting all the thoughts out of your head so you can sleep.
How good are you at anything after a bad sleep?
Relaxing in the right proportions isn’t time wasted, it helps you sleep well… which helps you be better at everything!
Jingle: getting good at relaxing is one key to getting good at life!
Rude jingle: if you eff up at sleep, you eff up at life. And that’s effed! [summer heights high reference]
People think you should concentrate at getting good at work, I think you need to be as good at relaxing as you are at working… because the better one is at working IMO the harder it is to relax.
There is an old adage of ‘work hard play hard’. I think a better adage is ‘work well, relax well, sleep well’
Work Mode vs Relax Mode - opposites… but yin and yang… the counter balances to each other?
Mindstates:
Conscious Thinking / On - thinking about what you want to (eg you choose a work task and focus only on this). I think this is an optimal work mindstate.
Unconscious Thinking - thinking about something you don’t want to (eg thinking about work when you are not at work and don’t want to be thinking about work. Eg at work and doing Task A and unwantingly thinking about Task B intermittently)
Conscious Off - this can happen in meditation, you focus on eg your breath to stop thoughts and emotions and by consciously concentrating on your breath. However this requires effort of eg concentrating on your breath.
Unconscious Off / No Effort Off - you could be speaking to a friend, having a walk, watching TV, listening to a song, etc and you are ‘present’ with what is in front of you. No effort needs to be expended to only focus on one thing. I think this is an optimal relax mindstate.
Context: I spent a decade figuring out what Work Mode was and trying to do it well. I only realised I should try to figure out Relax Mode ~5 years ago. In some respects, I found the better I was at Work Mode, the worse I was at Relax Mode.
How good are you at Relax Mode?
How good are you at concentrating (Work Mode)?
How good are you at switching between modes?
Structured relaxation is not being lazy, it's critical. It's not a luxury, it's a necessity.
A rearticulation: work is about high expectations, relax is about no expectations.
Another rearticulation: Olympic athletes don't train 7 days a week. So high performance (Work Mode), requires no performance (Relax Mode).
Ok one more: most people have never pushed the accelerator all the way down. Some people don't know how to push the brake. The faster you go (Work Mode), the more you need to slow down (Relax Mode).
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Details
To work well one should sleep and relax well. To rest well one should sleep and relax well. To sleep well one should work and relax well.
I thought about trying to make fancy colours for this… but I thought it would take too long… I’d rather relax :)
IMO Work, Relax and Sleep are mutually reinforcing. Ultimately I believe you need all of them to be in a good place.
Over the short term you can sustain one of them in a bad place.
But for quality long term outcomes I think you want all of them in a good place.
You recharge your phone once a day, should you not recharge yourself once a day?
If you haven’t recharged your phone overnight how is it the next day?
If you haven’t pulled an all nighter at work / had a bad sleep how are you the next day?
To me recharging = combination of Relax + Rest… ok coupled with a job you like (blog link for recipe for quality jobs)
IMO if you don’t like your job it’s hard to relax well.
And if you don’t relax well...
For me: Work + No Relax + Sleep => try to sleep but have a horrible sleep => crap at work the next day
IMO Relax ≠ Waste. 10 years ago Duncan thought any time not working was a ‘waste’. I’ll tell you what that thought is… a waste!
Relax Mode vs Work Mode (there are many other modes like fun / play mode but I’m concentrating on these in this blog)
What is ‘in the zone’ for work, or flow, is opposite to relax ‘in the zone’. You could almost call it ‘out of the zone’.
Conscious Thinking / On = In the zone / in flow
Unconscious Off = Out of the zone / chill
Of course these are over simplifications, but I find them useful. Eg in Relax Mode you can do things, you just don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to go on the walk, to read the relaxing book (for me, having to read a relaxing book = not relaxing), etc
Another lens: Purpose vs Play vs Peace
I’ve talked about this lens here before.
One thing I say is ‘I aim for 5 days of purpose per week, 1 day of play and 1 day of peace’.
Mindstates (modes, despite the alliteration I don’t want double use mode :( )
States:
MS1: Conscious Thinking / On - thinking about what you want to (eg you choose a work task and focus only on this). I think this is an optimal work mindstate.
MS2: Unconscious Thinking - thinking about something you don’t want to (eg thinking about work when you are not at work and don’t want to be thinking about work. Eg at work and doing Task A and unwantingly thinking about Task B intermittently)
MS3: Conscious Off - this can happen in meditation, you focus on eg your breath to stop thoughts and emotions and by consciously concentrating on your breath. However this requires effort of eg concentrating on your breath.
MS4: Unconscious Off / No Effort Off - you could be speaking to a friend, having a walk, watching TV, listening to a song, etc and you are ‘present’ with what is in front of you. No effort needs to be expended to only focus on one thing. I think this is an optimal relax mindstate.
IMO one can train oneself to get better at the different mindstates. IMO one can use different props to help be in each mindstate.
Training attention: one articulation of meditation is ‘attention control training’ AKA mindstate training.
Most meditation involves concentrating on your breath, doing a body scan, repeating a mantra, etc. IMO these are the same concept actualised in different ways. The concept is ‘concentrating on something’ that lets you slowly let go of whatever thoughts and emotions you have kicking around your mind. If you can meditate well what you are left with is calm.
One articulation of Calm = 1. Absence of thoughts + 2. Absence of emotions
If you meditate eg every day you slowly get better at reaching calm, ie your calm ability strengthens. This means when the ‘seas are rough’ you can bring out your calm ability and settle things.
What I find you are also doing is building your ability to focus on what you want, not to have your ‘monkey mind’ constantly throwing unwanted thoughts to think about.
People often refer to this as ‘being present’.
One articulation of ‘being present’ = 1. Able to concentrate on what you want - 2. Not having other thoughts constantly pop up
Being present at work = can focus on the task you want and not have ideas going off and then somehow ending up doing something different and only realising you are not working on what you wanted to be 5 mins later!
As an example if you have email notifications on IMO you are hijacking your ability to stay on task. You’ll be doing a task and see the notification and get tempted to click on it and see what is going on.
I find an active monkey mind is like having email notifications going off in your mind all the time. I’ve been meditating for 10 years now, I didn’t realise that I used to have ‘internal mind ‘email notifications’ constantly going off’.
Having wildly less ‘internal email notifications’ going off is a bliss of sorts :). It also allows me to concentrate way better on what I want!
Being present while relaxing = can focus on what your friend is saying / the nature in the park / the song / etc.
It’s hard to relax if you are constantly having ‘internal mind notifications’ of something you need to do next week going off, or something that didn’t go well last week going off.
Props to help with ‘Relax Mode’
Relaxing of course isn’t just doing nothing. IMO Relaxing = 1. Doing relaxing activities * 2. A relaxed mindstate (Unconscious Off / No Effort Off).
By this definition: Work = 1. Doing work activities * 2. A work mindstate (Conscious Thinking / On)
I try to relax for 2 hours before sleeping. This 2 hours = 1. Enjoyable + 2. Done well get’s my mind into neutral so I can sleep (lots of thoughts = Duncan can’t go to sleep).
Example of Duncan 2 hour before bed relax recipe = 1. Listen to a song and dance about + 2. Eat dinner mindfully + 3. Meditate for ~15 mins + 4. Watch mindless (relax) TV / go for a walk / get massage / stretch / Mindless (relax) reading
I try to do a day of relaxing each weekend, this is typically Saturday that I call ‘Duncan Day’.
One example of a saturday relax recipe = 1. Sleep in + 2. Cuddle + 3. Lazy brunch + 4. Meditate + 5. Mindless TV during which I fall asleep + 6. Nap + 7. Something in nature (walk, swim, etc) till I get bored + 8. Get massage + 9. Yummy not healthy dinner + 10. Talk sh1t with a friend + 11. Mindless TV watching + 12. Sleep.
If I’m thinking too much when I’m walking then I’ll put on some music eat up some mind bandwidth to get to ‘Unconscious Off’.
Another example of saturday relax recipe = 1. Sleep in + 2. Binge watch something mindless + 3. Order ubereats 3x times
IMO this is not a waste of a saturday, this is often the best use of a saturday!
Relaxing = Recharging
For myself, I want some time doing something (eg work, play time), and some time doing ‘nothing’ (eg relaxing).
For myself it’s a waste not to spend saturday this way. IMO if you don’t relax well you are at a much higher chance of burn out.
If you want to go hard at work and not burn out then one key strategy is to relax well.
Get good at relaxing so you can be good at working!
Some more possible relaxing activities: cooking, gardening, shopping, cleaning, golfing, surfing etc.
Rearticulation: the point to me is that you have a relaxed mind during ‘relax time’. I’m agnostic to how a relaxed mindstate happens, just hopefully that it does happen. If you eg don't like your job you'll eg maybe have self doubt. So getting work right is important, but so is relaxing.
Mindful vs Mind Full vs Mindless
Mindful = MS4 Unconscious Off / No Effort Off
Mind Full = MS2 Unconscious Thinking
If you are going for a walk in nature and you are seeing nature and not having a head full of ‘internal email notifications constantly going off’ then IMO people say you are ‘mindful’.
Your favourite TV show: 1. you come in tired and stress => 2. Watch you fav TV show => 3. Relaxed and happy.
Your fav TV show = Often Mindless TV = Light entertainment that isn’t serious or dense, it’s the equivalent of ‘talking sh1t with your friends’ in TV form = Escapism = Mindstate changing magic trick = A prop to get you to ‘MS4 Unconscious Off / No Effort Off’
So mindless TV = magic trick to be mindful (not thinking about anything but the TV show)
Or in short form: Mindless TV = Mindful
Yes I love this. Twisting logic to have opposites equate is much fun… mindful this mind puzzle!
When ‘relaxing’ isn’t ‘relaxing’
There was a time when I termed anything not work as ‘relaxing’.
But not work time might have been reading a hectic dense book on eg education.
But not work time might have been watching dense TV on politics.
But not work time might have been writing something like a CloudStreaks blog.
I realised that these things for myself were actually work by a different name.
It used to hurt me to watch mindless TV. It felt like ‘waste’. Now I get that Mindless TV can have a purpose.
Now I get to watch mindless TV and enjoy it and not feel guilty, it’s not a guilty pleasure, it’s a pleasure... as it’s a relaxing treasure :)
You could call relaxing productive procrastination :)
In relax time:
Before: Mindless TV in relax time = 1. Enjoyable + 2. Guilty
Now: Mindless TV in relax time = 1. Enjoyable + 2. Pleasurable
As above, the point to me is that in relax time you have a relaxed mind which I’ve articulated here as ‘S4 Unconscious Off / No Effort Off’. I’m agnostic to how this happens, just hopefully that it happens. I didn’t use to really understand what relaxing was (a mindstate) and didn’t see the purpose of it. This blog is some thoughts on articulating what relaxing is and some strategies to try and hopefully achieve it.
If you only take away one thing:
Sleep is not a luxury, sleep is a necessity. ~8 hours sleep a night = more done at work in an enjoyable fashion.
IMO done well, relaxing is not a luxury, relaxing is a necessity. IMO 2 hours relaxing a day + 1 day relaxing a weekend = more done at work in an enjoyable fashion = better sleep
I used to be proud of minimising time from work to pillow.
Now my goal is 2 hours of relaxing before bed.
I used to mainly watch dense TV for an hour before bed (eg a documentary on politics). IMO this was consuming information and had my mind in ‘thinking mode (MS1: Conscious Thinking / On)’ not ‘MS4: Unconscious Off / No Effort Off’ so when I stopped watching my mind didn’t want to go to sleep.
Balance is key. Having time to recharge will lead to higher quality outcomes in places like work.