ava's blog

i need more rest [everything i did in 2025]

A while ago, I wrote about intentional times of boredom for easier task switching, because I noticed there was an inner resistance when I had let go of a task in favor of another. In response, I gave myself the space and time to just sit there doing nothing. That meant a proper pause between activities, and it also bored my brain into complying, because at some point, even doing the dishes or doing the hard part in your studies is better than just sitting around.

I've slowly, without realizing, dropped this habit and piled a lot on my plate in general.

Even just my past four months were very full with exams, visiting family and friends, attending a conference, some seminars and conventions, the new semester at university starting, doctor's appointments, my own birthday (I am now 30!), and more. I just continued pushing through, because my motto for this year was basically to have two years in one, as last year I was constantly sick and mostly lying around. I felt like I had to catch up, and initially, I had the energy to do so. In my mind, this would only be temporary and I'd get to rest a bit "soon", but "soon" was put off again and again.

An overview of what I managed in 2025:

I noticed that I constantly felt overwhelmed and slightly panicked, like I wanted to cry, but nothing would happen. I craved a sensory deprivation tank, or for everything to just stop. Even easy things were really hard and it seemed as if I am just not recovering from anything mentally.

The problem is that when you are low-energy and constantly in fight-or-flight, you lose the ability to prioritize correctly, as everything feels equally important and urgent. As such, there is lots of decision fatigue, and more often than not, you'll start one task while thinking you should do the other and repeat; or you lie down due to feeling dizzy and tired from the internal pressure, and end up doing nothing significant at all. It prevents you from dedicating your all to one task for even 1-2 hours, as you keep questioning your choice and feel guilty no matter what.

I was constantly mentally bouncing between some aspects of my fulltime job, more studying, more case translation for noyb, more blogging, finally filling up my notes vault so it isn't still so empty, job search and applications, fitness, drawing and other creative pursuits, responding to emails, reading books, managing parts of the household, and more. I also suddenly felt terribly behind in general, feeling pressured to finish my degree as soon as possible and find some other certificates to do as well for my career. My chronic illness is also really good in instilling a sense of urgency in me... like I might run out of time.

I made the mistake of not having a weekly plan, not even a loose "Friday's the main study day!" or something, just going with the flow always. You'd think that this would permit a very flexible and relaxed attitude to all the things I wanna do that takes my fluctuating energy levels and health into account, but now I know that it just leads to me completely underestimating how much I do in a week while thinking nothing gets done. Not having scheduled things for specific days meant that at every free moment, I had about 10 things in my mind that I should be doing, while being unable to choose. I couldn't go "No worries, that's safely scheduled for the other day", no reminder in the schedule that I had already spent x hours on a thing already that week.

I also made the mistake of thinking I could keep up my study load from summer in the winter. That led to me enrolling in four classes for 30 ECTS total for this semester (exams in March 2026), but I realize I have to focus on doing two of them well, and making the other two optional. I am already at the end of a very exhausting year and there are lots of phases in winter when I just won't study as much (sick, birthday, holidays...), so I need to be realistic.

Yesterday, I made an effort to truly rank and prioritize everything I want to do with external help, and create a proper weekly plan that includes a lot of dedicated rest as well.

Something I don't want to repeat with that is thinking that indulging in media or doing easy work is proper rest. I just cannot get by long-term with using supposed downtime to do things I consider a bit easier, but that still are productive, a chore, or need my attention. I need to do nothing, because otherwise, my brain never gets proper downtime and it affects the quality of sleep, or the ability to fall asleep.

For me, not giving my brain that time of just silence expresses itself in two ways: Either there will be constant thoughts while trying to fall asleep that keep me awake (because when else does it have the space to surface those?), or my brain is so used to constantly receiving and processing things that lying down to sleep is too boring, which also keeps me awake. Then I can put on a video or soundscapes, which ironically also feels bothersome as I feel overstimulated from everything I have to do all the time and actually need some silence. It has led me to staying up very late until I am so tired that I can't help but fall asleep pretty quickly, but that's no way to solve the problem.

So hopefully now, with the new prioritization, the weekly plan, the acknowledgement of the problem, dropping some pressure and seeing how much I have already managed this year, I can go back to guilt-free breaks, intentional boredom, and focused work without burning out.

Related song: ADÉLA - Death By Devotion

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#2025 #health