In my mental model, I look at relaxation/disconnection like sleep.
You can behave as if it’s not important for awhile, but eventually it will catch up.
Personally, since I couldn’t see the burnout around the corner, I didn’t have the internal self talk to remind myself that relaxation is not just a waste of time.
I’m now working on baking this into my every day life by building habits around it. For me, that looks like:
- Mindfulness practice in the morning (using the “Waking Up” app, which has solidified the concepts for me in a way that no other app ever had)
- Regular walks in nature
- Cannabis + music listening sessions
But I can’t stress the value of mindfulness enough. For me it has become a tool to check in with myself more often and to really notice how things are going instead of just getting carried along by the currents of each day. And note this is not the same thing as some common forms of focus/concentration-based “clear your mind” meditation practices.
> I get a good night’s sleep I erroneously feel like I should be able to sustain my (probably unsustainable) momentum
Try to have patience.
When we see an improvement we get attached to it. This happens when losing weight, sleeping more, etc. Changing habits, even slightly, always takes time.
If, it seems to be evolving in the direction you desire in the long-term, you're good. Extrapolating from one or a few data points won't give good predictions.
> When I try to relax, I feel like I’m wasting time if I do it for too long.
Trust yourself.
Do you feel you're wasting time after a few hours, days, or months? If you relax enough, the need to do stuff usually comes back to you on its own. No need to force it via guilt or worry.
If you objectively can't relax as much as you'd like to, then remind yourself _why_ you're doing the things you do. You'll probably have great reasons to do so —making the most of some opportunity, doing it for your loved ones, whatever.
It could also be you needed to avoid relaxing some time in the past and now you have more space to relax but haven't re-analyzed your current situation properly and are not aware not-relaxing is not adequate strategy now, according to your desires and objectives.