Field Notes
The 90 Minute Truth
5 minute read
5 minute read
Garrett Groszko
•
Chronobiology
Attention
Garrett Groszko
•
Chronobiology
Attention
Your attention operates in natural 90-minute cycles, and honouring the rest periods that follow keeps your thinking sharp. Fighting this rhythm with willpower only depletes you by day's end.
Your attention operates in natural 90-minute cycles, and honouring the rest periods that follow keeps your thinking sharp. Fighting this rhythm with willpower only depletes you by day's end.
There's a moment, usually around 90 minutes into focused work, when something shifts. Not tiredness, but a bit of a haze. To me it feels like either my thoughts want to change or I'm just running out of space to continue working on this particular thing at the moment. I feel like I'm starting to drift.
At first I thought this was my ADHD brain and just couldn't concentrate. So I would try to rest my eyes for 20 seconds, look way from the screen or maybe stand up. If there was a deadline I'd try to push through, probably make another coffee or maybe just do something else because I was bored or losing concentration.
Some of those might feel like they are working in the short term, but none of those things actually address what's happening.
Nathaniel Kleitman, the researcher who discovered REM sleep, spent decades studying a rhythm he found running through the waking day as well. He called it the Basic Rest-Activity Cycle or maybe you've seen it as BRAC. Field State uses the term Ultradian Wave as the 90 minute cycle. So every 90 minutes or so, the nervous system moves through a natural wave pattern: energy rises, peaks, then comes back down. Then you've got a natural rest period for ten to twenty minutes. After that the wave starts again.
This 90 minute "wave" doesn't stop at all through out the day. It's happening behind everything you do each and every day. This is your body doing solid work for 90 minutes, then it needs you to rest. This rest period is where you can practice what I call Regenerative Attention. Try listening or feeling this natural rhythm. The question is: are you going to listen to it or push it aside?
Most of us override it. When you override it your body compensates with cortisol. You will still be able to think, but the quality narrows. By late afternoon, the accumulation of ignored troughs or rest periods is what you feel as that heavy, flattened quality that no amount of caffeine quite fixes.
The 90-minute truth is this: your attention is not a resource you can decide to extend indefinitely. It is a rhythm. And rhythms work best when you work with them.
Ten to twenty minutes at the trough or bottom of your wave is not lost time if you regenerate your attention properly and rest.
Notice when this happens. Take the rest. Regenerate your attention and surf through your day.
There's a moment, usually around 90 minutes into focused work, when something shifts. Not tiredness, but a bit of a haze. To me it feels like either my thoughts want to change or I'm just running out of space to continue working on this particular thing at the moment. I feel like I'm starting to drift.
At first I thought this was my ADHD brain and just couldn't concentrate. So I would try to rest my eyes for 20 seconds, look way from the screen or maybe stand up. If there was a deadline I'd try to push through, probably make another coffee or maybe just do something else because I was bored or losing concentration.
Some of those might feel like they are working in the short term, but none of those things actually address what's happening.
Nathaniel Kleitman, the researcher who discovered REM sleep, spent decades studying a rhythm he found running through the waking day as well. He called it the Basic Rest-Activity Cycle or maybe you've seen it as BRAC. Field State uses the term Ultradian Wave as the 90 minute cycle. So every 90 minutes or so, the nervous system moves through a natural wave pattern: energy rises, peaks, then comes back down. Then you've got a natural rest period for ten to twenty minutes. After that the wave starts again.
This 90 minute "wave" doesn't stop at all through out the day. It's happening behind everything you do each and every day. This is your body doing solid work for 90 minutes, then it needs you to rest. This rest period is where you can practice what I call Regenerative Attention. Try listening or feeling this natural rhythm. The question is: are you going to listen to it or push it aside?
Most of us override it. When you override it your body compensates with cortisol. You will still be able to think, but the quality narrows. By late afternoon, the accumulation of ignored troughs or rest periods is what you feel as that heavy, flattened quality that no amount of caffeine quite fixes.
The 90-minute truth is this: your attention is not a resource you can decide to extend indefinitely. It is a rhythm. And rhythms work best when you work with them.
Ten to twenty minutes at the trough or bottom of your wave is not lost time if you regenerate your attention properly and rest.
Notice when this happens. Take the rest. Regenerate your attention and surf through your day.
The return begins with a conversation.
Reach out and let’s discover how Field State can support you.
The return begins with a conversation.
Reach out and let’s discover how Field State can support you.
The return begins with a conversation.
Reach out and let’s discover how Field State can support you.