Thursday, July 13, 2023.
I've been feeling very low on energy these days. Here's some theories:
- Any social interaction I have with unfamiliar people or places creates chemical stress from high intensity sensing and negotiating activities in my brain. It's more like "adaptive frequency matching and handshaking data rate + protocol" than it is "masking"
- Residual chemicals (cortisol, adrenaline) remain in the system and have a long half-life depending on intensity of the interaction and its duration. It's a minimum of 4 hours but can go up to three days of uninterrupted recovery time. This is DECOMPRESSION as I'm labeling it
- After decompression, ENERGIZING is possible to do thinking work, deep work, productive stuff. To energize, I'm creating a list of things to do (the "dopamenu") that will generate feelings of connectedness and satisfy curiosity in a meaningful and reusable way.
- Energizing is interrupted when another social interaction occurs, particularly scheduled activities. Energy levels reset to 0 and I have to start over again with decompression followed by new energizing.
- Too many open tasks will use up energy, sometimes more energy than is available, which depletes reserves in a similar way to the social interaction. This is more of a kind of resentment I think. Artificial closure (timeblocking) helps with that.
Also, there is just regular mental tiredness that can be managed through controlled eating, blood movement, time away from concentration tasks. The energy buffer might have to be scaled to the ability to keep focused. I think eyestrain is another factor that is becoming increasingly problematic too.
There's a certain point in the day where I am just out of energy.