If you’re aware that everything goes up, down, and back around, that’s being observant.
If you can avoid fighting this pattern, that sounds like the height of intelligence.
It’s not just human behavior and biology that cycles. There are longstanding philosophical and scientific arguments for the idea that everything comes and goes. The ebb and flow of the tides, the cycles of the moon, the seasonality of weather patterns, and so on.
But I’m focused on the human angle.
Patients feel tired, then eventually they feel recharged.
Stressed out, then eventually calm.
It’s hard to advocate Doing Nothing when you’ve got deadlines to meet, but for Jeez, just settle down, man, waiting for Things To Sort Themselves Out works surprisingly well.
Unless it doesn’t
The exception, of course, is when something interrupts the wave.
Other people can make things worse, and if they’re malevolent, they can prolong the bad times. (I tell my patients to focus their energies on what they can control, which usually doesn’t include other people, but seeing as how I study self-defense and grappling, there is a limit to my pacifism.)
Messing with your own physiology will do it, too, and this is something that’s largely in your wheelhouse.
For example, if you’re chronically fatigued and piling on stress hormones through a lack of sleep, doomscrolling, catastrophizing, consuming ultra-processed carbs, and not exercising, you are actively interfering with your body’s ability to recover.
If you’re depressed and regularly drinking alcohol, a central nervous system depressant, you are again preventing your physiology from cycling out of a downswing.
Sometimes your physiology has gotten messed up and settled into a new, suboptimal set point. Maybe you did it to yourself, maybe something happened that threw lots of switches the wrong way, like a major viral infection, drug, or toxin exposure.
The point is, there’s a feedback loop that can get your body and mind back on track and keep it there. When that self-righting impulse gets messed with, the system goes sideways.
Action items: keeping the feedback loop well-fed
If your physiology has gotten out of balance, you may need the services of medical personnel to diagnose and address the issue. This includes but is not limited to medical doctors, mental health professionals, functional medicine practitioners, nutritionists, Eastern medicine doctors, and mobility coaches/physical therapists.
Otherwise, there are things that you can do for yourself.
1. Realize there is a tendency for all things to cycle
The first realization is that good times don’t last forever, and neither do bad times; history is not a straight line.
It’s more stress-inducing to assume that things will always stay a certain way, rather than continuously changing back and forth and acting accordingly.
2. You can ride this wave or swim against it
Maybe you can take steps to make the waves break faster; maybe not.
But you can absolutely get yourself stuck by sabotaging yourself.
Take care of your physiology and be kind to yourself.
3. Other people and forces are part of the big picture
Outside forces and humans have always been and always will be a part of the grand equation. It’s not that the stars and the tides are cool but people suck; ebb and flow applies to human behavior, too—especially to human behavior.
There’s no need to get more worked up over assholes than flat tires and thunderstorms.
4. You do you, boo
Your ability to see and affect things ends a little past your fingertips, sometimes not even that far, if you’re used to deceiving yourself.
What lies within your practical control are your own choices about how you take care of yourself. You can react to the stimuli thrown at you randomly, and sometimes not randomly, by the world around you.
Or you can choose for yourself what to work on.
5. Increase your sensitivity; tune in by quieting down
Thinking for yourself has always required a return to inner quietness, as per monastic traditions that date back more than 2,000 years.
Sometimes the best way forward is obvious. Sometimes the clue is as subtle as a bent blade of grass.
It’s hard to sense anything, to “hear yourself think,” when your inner world is full of memes and noise.
6. Tune out habits that counteract this sensitivity
Anything that interferes with calmness and clarity should make you squint a little.
7. Pay attention to inner signals
Get used to paying more heed to that little voice in your head. If it says, “You’re staying up too late, it’s time to turn off the phone and go to bed,” listen to it.
Ditto if it says to get up and move more, or play with your dogs, or hug your family.
The more your inner voice talks sense about fundamental self-care—sleep, exercise, nutrition, helping others, time outdoors, inner work—the more you can stay in tune with the wave.
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