#evan post

I’m bored. Incredibly bored.

We must settle this.

TLDR; You are allowed not to work at 100% capacity all the time.  Make sure to figure out what recovery and emergency states mean for you and your executive functioning.  (Reach out to an EF tutor if you need help!)

The basic premise of downshifting follows pretty closely to its name.  When you want to go faster, you shift your car into a higher gear; when you want to go slower or especially if you fear slipping on ice or snow, you shift into a lower gear.  Organizing your life can work in a similar way.  When you feel confident and stable, you can live your life in high gear, but when you feel yourself wobbling, it’s time to shift into a lower gear for your own safety.  

Downshifting different for everyone, but usually the concepts centers around understanding your limits.  If I didn’t have depression and anxiety and gender dysphoria at my heels, I would always be a morning person who reads lots of books and goes out with my friends on a Saturday night.  So, when I have my depression, anxiety, and gender dysphoria pretty under control with the help of chemicals, therapists, and an amazing support system I have grown over the years, I live like that guy.  I wake up at 7am every morning and meditate for 30 minutes before having a large breakfast of yogurt, granola, and fresh berries.  And I love it.  

But I’m not always going to be able to be that guy.  I’ve struggled with this a lot as I think anyone with a chronic illness has.  I used to beat myself up about ruining my own happiness and how I “always do this.” The various commitments I had made before my inevitable spiral – birthday parties, work hours, meetings – became reasons that I was a terrible friend, employee, person.  I had no way to handle the always-unexpected dissolution of my perfect, stable happiness.  

Now-a-days if I notice I am feeling low or if I recognize a trigger or if an upsetting family matter suddenly becomes my whole brain-space, I simply downshift.

Level 3 (Ideal): Wake up at 7am.  Meditate for 30 minutes every morning.  Wholesome breakfast.  Read the paper.  Attend every class.  Gym 4 times a week.  Ask someone to go to lunch with you at least once a week.  Have all readings and assignments completed before the class they’re due.  Go to bed at 10:30pm.  You are killing it.  

Level 2 (Recovery): Wake up at 9am.  Meditate at least every other day, probably before bed.  Chunk homework and assignments into small tasks. Ask a friend to sit with you while you work.  Explain to someone that you’re having a rough time.  Gym at least 2 times a week.  Attend what classes you can.  Email the professors of the classes you miss.  Get someone’s notes for those classes. Call your mom.   Get to sleep before 1am.  You are making progress.    

Level 1 (Emergency): Wake up when you can.  Email your professors that you are sick and will likely miss class this week.  Reach out to someone on your support system to explain what’s going on.  Ask a friend to sit with you while you watch TV.  Go to walk-in hours at the Counseling Center. Call your sister.  Make a list of the tasks that are due/coming up and circle anything that you think you can do this week.  Be honest.  Ask for an extension on the rest.  Let go of non-essential readings.  Shower at least 4 times a week.  Clean your space.  Get to sleep when you can.  You will get through this.  

What I gain by defining the different levels I can live in is a sense of control in the chaos.  This system means that even in my darkest hours, I still have a structure that makes me feel grounded.  And suddenly, my rules don’t suddenly disappear but simply adjust for what I need at that moment.  I see my limits, and I move with them.  It isn’t a matter of failure; it’s a matter of resilience. Bad stuff happens and good weeks get ruined, but you can get through it because you have a plan that prioritizes what you need.  

There are two key parts of implementing downshifting for yourself. It’s not the system for everyone but I have found it to be very helpful for myself and recommend it to anyone dealing with a chronic illness especially.  

The first thing you need to do is figure out what these levels look like to you.  No one has the same goals and no one has the same inclinations.  My sister, for example, would never choose to get up early in the morning no matter what her emotional state was.  I have a friend who goes to the gym more when he needs recovery, not less, because he finds it soothing and energizing.  The most important part of implementing any structure to your life is to understand what you need.  This is the longest, hardest, most crucial aspect of wellness and self-organization.

Don’t worry if you don’t know right now what exactly works for you, either.  You can start by estimating roughly what might help you, what you might need, based on reflections on past experiences.  Then, gradually, you can start ruling out what doesn’t work for your and trying new ways to be.  The important part is to get started because you will never know what will help you until you first try to help yourself.  You are in progress and that is okay.  So is everyone else! Even if you have been a long-time wellness junkie like me, you will still learn new things about yourself along the way and your rules and your structures will change.  That is totally normal and good.  

The second thing you need to do to learn how to downshift is almost as slippery as the first, but again, it gets easier with practice.  You need to learn how to gauge your emotional state. Some people are already great at this. Myself, I tried a lot of different techniques to get this one right.  One way to determine how you are feeling that many people swear by is the simple method of rating yourself on a mood chart.  Angry, sad, meh, content, happy, etc.  Lots of people love to track their moods on paper or in an app by assigning each emotion a color and giving a color to each day, which is really great! Unfortunately, this does not work for me.  My emotions are so messy all the time that choosing just one for each day always feels wrong, and anyway I am just not good at daily tracking tasks. Instead, I use my internal map of Oberlin as my check-in (I know it’s kinda weird, but it works okay?) I have identified several places across campus that I know I am likely to pass at least one of in a day and I have made those check-in spots.  Passing by the Rat, walking up the ramp to Mudd. These are triggers for my brain to ask me about my emotional state.  Here’s how it usually goes:

Evan.  You’re walking up to Mudd.  Probably here to study, huh? How do you feel about that? Are you scared you won’t finish your work on time? Have you made yourself small enough tasks? Remember to go to the bathroom before you sit down somewhere and get all your stuff out because you know how annoying it is to pack everything up just to bring with you into the bathroom because you are nervous about thieves. Fill your water bottle, too.  Do you have a snack?

Or

Evan.  You’re walking past the Rat.  Are you on the way to Decafe? Have you eaten today? When have you last eaten? Was it enough? There’s a good water fountain coming up so make sure to refill your water bottle if it’s low.  Do you feel dizzy? Tired? Think about whether you need a break soon because you don’t want to burn out.  Have you called your mom?

These moments along with my meditation practice, therapy, and speaking to friends and family are how I know whether it’s time to upshift or downshift. I always make sure that I have different and varied methods of evaluating my status because none of these are rules.  I have a hard time making “How are you doing?” into a task.  Asking myself how I’m doing is a habit, and it’s a good one. Any wellness system should have built-in reflection strategies because looking at your progress and your current well-being is a huge part of keeping yourself well.

By now, you might be thinking that downshifting seems like a lot of work.  The reason for this is that downshifting is sort of Life Organizing 301.  Before downshifting comes 1. Prioritization, 2. Goal-making, 3. Reflection and Evaluation, 4. Daily and Weekly Scheduling, and 5. Self-Care.  There are each big skills in their own right and worth investigating on their own.  If you feel like you might need to do some work on any of these topics before you even think about downshifting, that’s okay! You can still come away with the key ideas of downshifting which are

1.     Sometimes you have to take a break from your rules, but you don’t have to throw them away entirely.  If you find yourself needing a break, you have not failed.  

2.     Recovery is a state of being that all of us fall into sometimes and is totally normal.  You are allowed to be in recovery or in emergency for any reason.  You are valid.  You can get through it.  

3.     Even if you don’t live the way you want to every day, you can still live the way you want to some days or half the days or even most of the days. Nothing in your life has to be absolute.

Did you see that?!