Finding rhythm: why the right rhythm can help you avoid burnout
Rhythm is all about the pace and timing with which we do things.
Finding the right rhythm creates a flow of life that is sustainable over time, rather than getting caught in patterns like stop-start or crash and burn.
Finding the right rhythm helps you live life at a pace that feels good for your body, mind and nervous system. You move between periods in which you’re engaged, driven and active and times when you reflect, rest and renew.
Our bodies like rhythm as Daniel Levitin wrote in ‘Your brain on music’. As such we all have a unique and inherent rhythm that runs through our bodies, a baseline at which we feel safe and generally quite good.
Rhythm is regulating. Rhythm helps us build and keep momentum.
Finding your own rhythm
Our unique, personal feel-good rhythm starts getting shaped during our early development; in-utero the unborn child attunes to the rhythm of the mother’s heartbeat while experiencing a complete sense of safety. The rhythm of everyday life as experienced during our upbringing is an ongoing influence, whether that’s our own family’s rhythm or the broader cultural settings in which we grow up.
It feels sensible to align everyday life as much as possible with our imprinted rhythm for wellbeing. As with so many things in life, this alignment starts with knowing yourself and your needs.
How well do you know your personal rhythm?
You might be aware of your circadian rhythm and whether you are a lark or an owl.
You can also observe which music makes you feel at ease and when do you feel a bit agitated or stressed, or equally which music makes you feel bored or sleepy.
Check in with your breathing regularly to notice what your baseline breathing rhythm is.
You might notice whether you start your days slowly and literally need some time to warm up, or whether you are a ‘naught to hundred in sixty seconds’ kind of person.
What’s your typical speech pattern and rhythm?
What’s your signature walk? Are you a brisk walker or someone who loves to meander?
The more we are aware of our personal optimum the easier it is to stay in this ‘feel-good’ window as much as possible.
Shifting gears
Of course, we don’t live in a vacuum and have to be in touch with the world around us.
We have to respond to timelines and deadlines. We have to work around schedules and timetables. We consider others in our life.
Therefore, we adopt habitual rhythms in certain areas of life. Most of us will observe this in the work environment. Office or work hours and shifts start and end at certain times, and we’re expected to honour these to help choreograph the collaboration between large numbers of people. Being able to perform under pressure and at a fast pace is required in many professions. Whether we adjust to a back-to-back meeting schedule, the rostering of shift work or the speed of an assembly line, we will often spend large parts of our day in a rhythm that’s not entirely ours.
This isn’t an issue in itself, it’s simply part of life. We must be careful though to recover and slow down if the adopted habitual rhythm is much faster than our baseline rhythm. And we should check in with ourselves when we shift from one role into another.
Am I wolfing down my dinner because I have adjusted to a short lunch break and have had to make a million quick decisions during my workday?
Am I walking that quickly on my weekend walk because my signature walk is a brisk one or I want to exercise, or have I missed shifting gears since I’ve stepped away from my fast-paced job?
Am I cramming three catch ups with friends into my Sunday because it gives me energy and joy or because I’m simply used to this sort of scheduling or think it’s what others expect?
Finding a shared rhythm
While following our own rhythm is important for our wellbeing, there is also value in aligning our rhythm with others.
Synchronising our own rhythm with others fosters a sense of connection.
We might align our breathing (subconsciously) or adjust our stride and pace when walking with someone else. George Leonard wrote in ‘The Silent Pulse’:
“The more you move in rhythm with someone, the closer you become with that person.”
Cultures have songs, dancing, chanting, or praying as part of their rituals around mourning and healing. People came up with work songs, they chant in sport stadiums and marching plays a crucial role in the military.
If two (or more) people manage to align their rhythms — and this will be a mutual adjustment to find synchrony — they will be regulated which makes it easier to relate to each other. Without relating there is no reasoning.
Finding a shared rhythm is therefore an important ingredient in good relationships or well-functioning teams. A synchronised walk & talk meeting can be a fertile environment that not only leads to connection, but also strong ideas and productive negotiation. In our intimate relationships, talking about challenges while walking can also work wonders.
Rhythm helps us learn
Rhythm also affects our ability to listen and absorb information. Hence most languages have songs or nursery rhymes to teach for example the alphabet.
Rhythm turns listeners into participants.
When a group listens to a presentation or speech with a strong rhythm their brains and heartrates synchronise, creating a strong sense of connection, unity and belonging. (I can still remember the English lesson when I first listened to Martin Luther King’s speech ‘I have a dream’.) In social activism, it mobilises a community around a shared goal. In a team setting this sense of belonging can lead to greater engagement and ultimately better outcomes.
The Goldilocks approach to rhythm
Whether we operate at a rhythm that’s good for us or not will influence performance and wellbeing.
This quote by Miyamoto Musashi summarises why rhythm is so important:
“The rhythm with which things progress, and the rhythm with which things deteriorate should be understood and differentiated.”
There is a sweet spot between too fast and too slow. And on either side of this sweet spot we lose focus.
If we do something too fast, our mind begins to race, and we lose clarity in our thinking. If we do something too slowly, our mind begins to wander, if it gets too bored it might check out. We become receptive for daydreaming and distraction – important parts of the creative process but only when we get into daydreaming or mind-wandering at the right time and in the appropriate setting.
For you personally, notice the pace that seems to help you produce your best work, make meaningful progress and feel connected versus the pace that leaves you scattered and overwhelmed or bored and disengaged. What’s your attention span? Do you work well with 25-minute sprints, or do you prefer a couple of hours of deep and undisturbed work? How does this differ for different tasks?
As a leader it’s more complex. It pays off to consider that a broad spectrum of rhythms will be present when people get together in groups and work in teams.
Conventional brainstorming, for example, suits extroverts and those with a faster thinking/ operating pace; but for those who generate ideas in a slower rhythm brainwriting might be the better approach. Are you creating spaces where you let people gather their ideas quietly, in written form (which will also help to get more input from quieter, more junior, or less confident participants)? As we build greater awareness of neurodiversity in teams and groups these considerations matter.
Encourage conversations around the awareness of rhythm.
Be imaginative in creating opportunities that allow everyone to work at their personal pace and ensure group settings can cater to a variety of rhythms and help people get in sync. This becomes increasingly important in new work setting where we combine remote and on-site work and have to develop new behaviours around communicating and collaborating.
I have witnessed that people who participated in my reflective practice programs also learned something about their rhythm.
Even though these small group programs require a degree of shared rhythm participants still observe how much time they need to explore and unearth insights.
I’ve seen genuine surprise in people when they realise how much they can cover and achieve in ten or twenty minutes and that the time limit helped them focus.
Equally, I’ve had people realise that they need more time and accommodate this by adding extra reflection time at the end of the group session to make sure they can complete their own reflective cycle.
Creative reflective practice can look like this…