In early January, I felt a familiar disconnect: while my body craved hibernation, the world buzzed with “new year, new you” messaging. This jarring contrast led me to reflect on our relationship with rest, productivity, and natural cycles – both as a scientist and as someone learning to honour my body’s wisdom, and also to offer a workshop using the drum to manage this.
The Biology behind winter rest
First let me make something clear: making resolutions in early January makes no sense on an energetic and biological level. We’re in midwinter. It is still dark and cold. We are meant to rest at this time.
It’s a fact, biologically. I did my PhD and 2 postdocs on chronobiology. Evidence shows that when nights are longer we have less energy. In fact as a species we used to work a lot harder during the time of the year when nights were short, but the advent of mass schooling (and people needing the kids back to help during the harvest) led to what we have now: holidays at a time (summer) when we need the least rest.
What Celtic Wisdom Teaches Us About Seasons
It is also a fact in nature. Just look around, nature is still mostly hibernating, even though tiny signs of Spring can already be visible. I celebrate the festivals of the celtic wheel of the year, and it would make much more sense to wait to plan goals/do resolutions etc starting from Imbolc (end of January/early February), when the energy of Spring is starting to rise.
Despite taking a really long break over Christmas, the first week when we were supposed to be back at work, I noticed that I was still very sluggish. Getting back to work after holidays is something I’ve learnt that I need to do progressively, and I did, but this was next level. I just wanted to hibernate. I did very little work that week, I just couldn’t get going.
I noticed something really interesting happening. Whilst I’ve always known in my head that winter is for rest, I still struggled with some level of guilt about not being productive that week. This I expect is due to my upbringing, and belonging to a culture that sees “being productive” all the time as a sign of worth, and resting as a sign of laziness.
Nature likes balance. What comes up must go down. The cycle of growth and decay is very clearly evidence in nature. Trees don’t bear flowers or fruits all year round. But still, it is hard when the “productivity” belief has been so ingrained in us since childhood. This also makes it hard to know when we truly need to rest or we are simply experiencing a disconnect, a resistance between our inner state and what we think we ought to be “doing”.
That first week of January, my body simply would not let me work. So I leaned into that, and lo and behold, the following week my energy was back to a much more functional level. And projects started to pull me forward once more: this week I received the mock up of both the French translation of my first book (Why postnatal recovery matters), and of my new book about women and drumming, on the same day!
When Productivity Becomes Unsustainable: My ADHD Medication Journey
In my case, it is probably not surprising that I needed some extra rest. In July 2024 I started taking ADHD stimulant medication (Elvanse/Lisdexamfetamine). Whilst part of me loved the hyper productive experience the medication gave me (and it sure was fantastic in helping me finish my book in time), by September, I started noticing that I was working at a level that wasn’t natural or sustainable. I was working at a constant level. There were no “down days” , something that used to be normal for me. I not only finished the book about drumming, and did all the edits and corrections, but I also finished correcting the French translation of my first book, and also did all the work to launch my first group program.
In September I experienced constant bleeding, which led me to stop taking HRT after 18 months (when I look back, this was probably also related to overworking). By November I was also experiencing severe gut symptoms. When I meditated with my gut, the answer came loud and clear: you need to slow down. I did not really want to but the symptoms were severe enough for me not to be able to ignore them. It was as if my gut was literally screaming at me.
After researching the subject and finding evidence that there is a link between the meds I was taking and the symptoms I was experiencing, I decided to stop taking the ADHD meds, and did so at the end of November. I also took healing herbs and saw a homeopath, but listening to my body’s cry for rest really felt key. I was prescribed typical Western medicine, drugs that I knew would not heal, but just put a temporary lid on my symptoms, and also stop me from listening to my body’s needs.
So I slowed right down, winding my work from early December onwards, and stopping completely by mid December, and really not properly resuming a sense of readiness to work until mid January. When I look back, having spent 5 months working at an abnormally high pace, it’s not surprising that I would need a much longer break than normal to recover.
Learning to Listen: The Different Faces of Rest
Now that I’m meds free, I’m back to having my normal ebb and flow, with the ups days and the down days. I’m working at trusting the wisdom of that. I know that, in typical ADHD fashion, when I get up on days I often accomplish several days of work in a few hours. And I need to trust and lean into the down days (I call them “fuck-it” days-and usually give up on trying to work and do something nourishing instead).
However, I also experience procrastination that is not down to having an energetic down day. It’s more that there is something blocking me underneath. A sense of stagnancy, of stuckness.
I feel it’s really important to be able to distinguish between the two: is this really my body trying to tell me to rest, or am I running away from something uncomfortable? The two feel completely different. The key is to lean into the embodied experience.
Finding Flow Through Rhythm: How Drumming Breaks Stagnation
When I am procrastinating, the one thing that seems to help me faster than any other tools I’ve tried is my drum. Whenever I’m experiencing resistance or feeling stuck, I put a timer on for 5 min and play my drum. It’s amazing how quickly it shifts me from stuck more into movement and ideas. I also often listen to some drumming tracks designed to modify my consciousness/state of mind whilst working/getting started.
Conclusion
As we navigate the pressure to maintain constant productivity, perhaps the greatest wisdom lies in trusting our natural rhythms. Whether it’s honouring winter’s call for rest or using tools like drumming to move through genuine blocks, the key is learning to distinguish between our body’s true needs and conditioned resistance. This journey has taught me that productivity isn’t about maintaining constant output, but about flowing with our natural cycles.
I am aware that many of us are experiencing similar issues to the ones I describe above at this moment in time and feeling difficulties in getting going. I’d love to hear what your experience has been.
To support this, I’ve decided to offer a workshop called Beat procrastination with the drum, on the 29th of January.