“Running Through My Mind” | Collage by Blake Reichenbach
Hey friends,
At the time of writing this, we’re in the midst of the January 2026 Snowpocalypse. I believe Winter Storm Fern is her government name.
Thankfully, this blanket of snow and ice began its descent on Saturday morning while I was already at the gym, and I was able to get home before any real accumulation started. It’s now Sunday afternoon, and I’m practically stuck inside my house. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. My car could handle the roads, and I’m comfortable driving in slick conditions, but for all intents and purposes, I’m considering myself homebound to justify the totality of my introversion.
The Plan vs. Reality
Knowing that the storm was going to roll through, I told myself that I’d have ample creative time this weekend. I stocked up on groceries and extra coffee on Friday in preparation to hunker down.
Rather than reading and writing, I spent my Saturday cleaning my house while Game of Thrones played in the background (it’s my first time watching the show! Turns out… it’s pretty good. Someone really should have told me about it sooner). Closer to bedtime, I took an herbal gummy and then watched YouTube videos until I was ready to fall asleep.
Today– Sunday– I started my day off in a less-than-ideal way. Perhaps because of the gummy’s influence, I forgot to Brick my phone before going to sleep. So, when I woke up this morning and heard my phone buzz with a few text notifications, I reached for it, read those texts, and then clicked into Instagram without even thinking about what I was doing.
Breaking the Spiral
As is often the case, starting the day with noise and stimulation makes it hard to shift gears and find the quiet contemplation I need to do my best creative work. So, around lunch time, I was feeling a bit despondent and frustrated with myself. I grabbed my journal, externalized my frustrations, and what I wanted to be doing instead of keeping myself distracted, and then locked down my electronics to be unable to access any of my common sources of distraction.
After journaling, I set a timer for myself– just thirty minutes– and decided that I would spend that time writing, and I wouldn’t stop until the timer went off.
Gaining momentum was a challenge, but eventually I did. When my half-hour timer started to ding, I was able to silence it and keep going. I’d found my groove. I wrote until I reached the end of the scene I was working on, and then went back to my journal. I’ve found that creative momentum is most easily sustained if I bookend my creative sessions with some time for reflection. A few minutes before writing, in which I review my last set of notes and tell myself at a high-level what’s happening in the scene I aim to write, is like a warm-up before a workout. When I open my Freewrite to get into my drafting, I’m already primed and able to orient myself faster. Then, after I’ve written, I jot a few lines in my journal about what’s working, what I want to change, and how I see the narrative evolving from that point gives me a sense of the bigger picture– confidence that I can make the manuscript work. It also gives me a reference point for when I’m ready to come back to my project.
An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon.
A mind in chaos will remain in chaos unless quieted.
The Weekend Distraction Problem
But in my experience, it’s often easier to prevent your mind from becoming chaotic than it is to rein it in, which is why I tend to have success with bricking my phone before bed and only unbricking it after my workday.
In writing this newsletter, I think one thing that stands out to me is that I need to think about my weekend routines. I have a 9-11 quiet time schedule with Opal on my phone, but it’s easy to override, and I’m often up before 9, so I have time to get sucked into a downward spiral of scrolling before it even kicks in. There’s some fear of missing out if I brick my phone on the weekends. I’ve got friends who contact me exclusively through Instagram, after all, but I think it’d be worth it if it meant I could use my weekends in a way I enjoy.
In my journaling today, I reflected that I rationalized my scrolling this morning by telling myself that I’m so busy and drained throughout the week, that I can’t be too hard on myself for indulging in some restful laziness on the weekends. In theory, that’s true. The problem with that logic is that social media isn’t restful or restorative. It’s a blur of hunky men, drag queens, Pokémon, and the frustrated realization that half of your distant family members and informal connections are borderline sociopaths. That’s not restorative. Okay, sure, the hunky men bouncing their pecs to trending sounds is kind of restorative, but even big man milkers have their limits.
Rest Isn't What We Think It Is
What I’m getting at is this: our mental model of rest may be doing more harm than good if we don’t examine it closely.
Rest– if I’m not being thoughtful– easily becomes skewed in my mind to be stillness that’s mediated by sound and distraction.
While physically restful, spending time that way creates more stress and anxiety because what I’m mentally ingesting isn’t healthful. I recognize that, by using my time that way, I’m not doing something better with it.
Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith discusses seven types of rest people need, including sensory, creative, and spiritual rest. The APA website describes these three types of rest in particular as follows:
Sensory rest
The world can be loud, and constant exposure to technology only increases the noise, potentially overwhelming your senses. “Try to occasionally take breaks from anything you rely on your senses to register, whether background noise in your environment or screens that strain your eyes,” says [Natalie Dattilo-Ryan, PhD]. If you take a tech break, Santos recommends replacing screen time with restorative activities, such as connecting with a loved one or spending time outdoors.
Creative rest
If you have a job that requires creativity, brainstorming, or problem-solving, you may need some creative rest. Along with giving your brain the occasional break from those demands, find ways to engage in creative hobbies—whether knitting, writing, baking, or painting—for fun. [Laurie Santos, PhD] says participating in activities that inspire a sense of awe and wonder, like visiting an art museum or taking in a beautiful lakeside or ocean view, can also restore your creative reserves.
Spiritual Rest
If you have a religious or spiritual practice, rest may mean stepping back from rigid ways of thinking that cause stress or pressure in your life, says Ayanna Abrams, PsyD, a clinical psychologist and founder of Ascension Behavioral Health in Atlanta. But spiritual rest can also mean taking steps toward what feels nourishing to you, says Santos—refilling your tank by connecting to a cause that’s meaningful to you or simply taking time to enjoy the beauty of nature.
Including these three types of rest in the equation helps explain why spending time lounging and scrolling is so unsatisfying. While I don’t see myself as a spiritual or religious person, I think we all crave a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging to something bigger than ourselves. By constantly slamming my mind with sensory overload, relegating my creative skills to the realm of my day job so that other creative acts feel like a chore, and shying away from nurturing the projects that I believe are part of something bigger, I deny myself the opportunity to fully rest.
My takeaway from all of this is that rest is counterintuitive. In your creative arsenal and throughout the process of stepping back into your creativity, you can’t mentally box yourself into a version of rest that takes you further from where you want to be.
Active Recovery for Your Brain
If you’ll indulge me in a fitness metaphor, I see it as the difference between active recovery and passive recovery. With active recovery, you’re taking a break from the things that have strained you, but using low-resistance movement– like walking, stretching, and yoga– to increase blood flow, cultivate mobility, and decrease soreness.
Carving out time for quiet reflection and dedicating it to creativity without putting any expectations on yourself other than to be creative during that time is kind of like choosing to go for a gentle walk on your rest day from the gym. You feel better, you get in some movement, and you aren’t actively working against your progress. It’s recovery, but it’s active.
So here's what I'm trying for the next few weeks:
Bricking my phone on weekend mornings until I've had at least one hour of creative or restorative time. No Instagram hunks until I've written, read, or done something that actually fills my tank.
I'm also rethinking my weekday evenings. Instead of collapsing into scroll mode after work, I'm asking: What kind of rest do I actually need right now? Sensory? Creative? Spiritual?
Sometimes the answer will still be "watch Game of Thrones and clean my house." But at least it'll be a choice, not a default.
What about you? What does real rest look like for you? Hit reply and let me know—I'd love to hear what you're experimenting with.
Until next time,
Blake