What is this word “relax”?
The amount of times people have told me to “just relax”, when I’m stressed, when my cello technique isn’t correct, all sorts of situations throughout life. I’ve always nodded to them because it sounds like reasonable advice, like the right thing to do in this situation. But really I have a secret: I don’t actually know what relaxing is and have no idea how to do it!!
Like many of my clients, I walk the line between ADHD and being a “Type A” personality if you will, in which the relationship is somewhat mediated by my autism and giftedness - there’s a lot going on in my brain apparently and this combination results in a situation where the concept of relaxation is genuinely rather confusing to me and I’ve had to change how I think about it as a whole over the years.
Incidentally as well, when I was discovering my ADHD I had a diagnostic assessment lined up but I hadn’t yet let myself accept that I might have ADHD I was deliberately avoiding information about ADHD, and YouTube was showing me a lot of it, but there was one video that did actually get me to click, and that was: “The Struggle To Relax: Why ADHD Makes It Tough” by Jessica McCabe of How To ADHD.
That video was one of those watershed moments, one that you can pinpoint where your whole view of life changed. Because not only did it change and inform some of my views around relaxation today that I’m going to share with you as this video goes on, but it was also the moment I concluded and accepted that I do actually have ADHD. And a month later almost to the day, I had the diagnosis that confirmed it as well.
What makes this particularly interesting is because my inability to relax actually almost prevented me from being diagnosed with ADHD in the first place. I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that I was diagnosed as 2e, Twice Exceptional, which means that my brain is gifted as well, and that gifted is a brain difference with pros and cons and not something to feel self-conscious about appearing braggy every time I mention it. I’m a work in progress!
But this combination of gifted and unable to relax has meant that I have always found things to do with my time. School work wasn’t too hard to executive function on most of the time and even if I had trouble starting, I could usually get it done quick enough to have it done by the end of class. And when I did finish with ample time to spare, I didn’t distract the class, I didn’t stare off into space, things that are often considered signs to ADHD in childhood. What did I do instead? I pulled out my notebook and continued writing the novel I’d started last month, or wrote that song idea that had been in my head. Or worked on my meager artistic skills. I didn’t use my downtime for a breather, it was for a new activity instead.
Because downtime for me, and many of us with ADHD, isn’t actually downtime, or not in the sense people generally tend to think of it. I was always confused by people who suggested spending your holiday relaxing at the beach because I didn’t understand how someone could just lie on a beach all day doing nothing. I don’t understand people who relax by sitting quietly listening to music or watching a TV show or looking out of the window and watching the world go by.
Jessica McCabe talks about these things requiring self-regulation. For those of us with ADHD, doing nothing isn’t actually doing nothing. It’s putting in effort to look like we’re doing nothing. It’s using willpower, or executive function, to get ourselves to sit down, to be quiet, to do the things we’re meant to do to relax.
Because when you’re someone high energy with a busy brain, this kind of relaxing can actually be pretty boring and boredom for us is just the worst thing. And I’m exaggerating slightly but when I get bored I feel restless, I feel frustration, negative emotions welling up inside of me that I can’t control. My Mum always told me, affectionately I might add, that I was insufferable when I was bored and I know for a fact I irritate my partner to no end on the rare occasion that he has to deal with bored Leigh. So self-regulating to try and sit in a place that I find boring? Absolutely impossible.
Jessica suggests instead having “mind unleashed time” where you let your brain do what it wants to do and go where it needs to go and I have thoroughly embraced this concept. I recently took up watercolour painting for just a short period of time because my brain wanted to do it and convinced myself to set no expectations for how it would turn out. Sometimes I’ll play on my switch, other times I’ll get deeply invested in a non-fiction book of a topic that interests me right now. Other times I’ll go and exercise and use that to get out all the excess vibrational energy in me.
Honestly, the switch is pretty good for hyperfixations but trying to optimise your Stardew Valley day isn’t always the most relaxing
Now some of those things are actually going to look like relaxing, and from time to time maybe some of them cross into that realm, but they don’t have to be. I distinctly remember sitting on the sofa with my switch one day and my partner thought I was unwinding that evening, until I took my headphones off, looked up at him and spewed out a load of thoughts about marketing for my business - something I had been listening to a podcast on while I was playing. I can be deeply engrossed in a TV show, fully emotionally committed with a brain spinning while it just looks like I’m chilling out watching the TV show.
One of the concepts that I’ve alluded to a lot in this video is the concept of the spinning brain, one that just doesn’t stop thinking and this is a fundamental part of my ADHD. In fact, it’s one that often keeps me up at night where I can be physically tired, emotionally tired but my brain? It’s just not there yet. So it keeps spinning well past when I need to be asleep and that makes my life a lot harder the next day.
Now I know the answer for how to help this situation because I have been told to do this time and time again and actually I have tried it, a number of times, but it doesn’t work for me. And that’s mindfulness and meditation. And I KNOW it’s meant to be especially helpful for ADHD and people advocate for it all the time, but let me tell you why it doesn’t work for me.
You’re telling me, to meditate, I should be focusing on my breath. Except focusing on my breath is boring and boring is awful so my brain spins off in all different directions. So I’m told I should be trying to reduce my thoughts, okay that’s a goal I can work towards. Except I can’t. So that’s frustrating. But then I get told no, you’re not trying to stop them, you’re just noticing them when they appear and let it go. But then I notice them constantly, and I think about how I’m noticing them, then realise I’m thinking about thinking about how I’m noticing them and then I get frustrated. So I get told to not get frustrated and “just let them go”. So now you’re telling me to put effort into emotionally regulating as well? That’s a lot of executive function spoons to be spending here!
I’m poking fun here but I’m not actually trying to bash meditation, rather to explain why it’s something that doesn’t work for me. But actually the concept of mindfulness being in the moment, that I can get behind, I just need to do it a different way; active mindfulness instead of trying to relax.
So what does that look like? For me most of the time that involves exercise. Going for a walk and enjoying the movement of my body while the thoughts spin. Doing yoga and focusing on my breath, not for the sake of it, but for the technique and what that unlocks in yoga so my body feels nicely like jelly in front of it.
Honestly I was sceptical about yoga for too long because I was too much of a “hardcore” exerciser. It’s one of my favourite forms of exercise now. It feels so good to stretch!
It’s perhaps a contradiction as well that in some ways I find my jiu jitsu to be relaxing as well. On the face of it, it’s really not. I’m constantly fighting off people who are trying to put me in joint locks or chokes and you know, I’ve not been doing it for very long so I’m pretty bad at it so I’m constantly under pressure from people trying to submit me. Physically, it’s far from relaxation, but mentally.. Mentally I can’t think of anything else when I’m doing it. I’m so caught in the moment of trying to survive the fight that those spinning thoughts? They actually stop.
So I could conclude here and say that relaxation looks different for me specifically and those of us with ADHD in general, but I actually think I want to share some final thoughts on something else. Because I want to ask the question: “Is our inability to relax in the most normalised definition of the word actually a bad thing?”
Because the time I don’t spend “relaxing” is time I spend learning. It’s time I spend growing, experimenting, trying new things. It’s incredibly productive, even if the things I’m spending my time on aren’t immediately useful (or maybe not even useful at all) but they all contribute towards who I am as a person.
This inability to relax causes something else in me and many of my clients. It causes drive. When we are pulled to do things all the time, we become incredibly driven people. We set out to do Big Things and this drive pulls us to those directions. Sometimes it can pull us too hard and we sacrifice too much of ourselves in the pursuit of these goals so we have to be careful and make sure we recognise where we’re tired and need breaks. But personally, I wouldn’t have done half as much as I have in life if it wasn’t for my complete inability to relax, and in my book? That’s a good thing.
So let me know your thoughts in the comments below. How do you think about the concept of relaxing? What things do you find relaxing that others would just find completely bizarre?
I wanted to get in a thought about physically relaxing my muscles etc and how that’s hard due to poor interception but couldn't’ find a way to include it in this video so if you have any thoughts to share and would love a conversation about this topic as well, let me know in the comments.
Otherwise, you might be interested in going back and watching my video on ADHD and keeping on switching jobs, something that those of you who are driven like me will relate to a lot.
If this resonates with you and feel you would be interested in talking to an adhd and autism-friendly coach, feel free to get in touch. If you’re looking for more blog posts, you can find them here.
Want to see more?
Sign up with your email address to receive the latest thoughts on neurodivergent careers and leadership.