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Energy & Wellbeing | Ultradian Rhythms
THE THOUGHT
Some pages feel ten minutes long.
The words are right there. You've read the same sentence four times. Your eyes march across the page, but nothing lands. Defiant words refusing to surrender their meaning.
You walk away in frustration. Make coffee. Return after twenty minutes.
By the mystery of later, the ideas now flow like they were always meant to. They form meaning, paint pictures, offer up their secrets. Everything clicks. Same page, same brain.
Something shifts between the struggle and the breakthrough. A hidden timer decides when your mind is ready. Not now. Later.
Do you wrestle with defiant words?
We trust nature to know what it is doing, but we are not nearly so kind, understanding, or forgiving of our own rhythms.
THE DIVE
The Body's Hidden Clock
Even while awake, our brain spends 20 minutes of every 90-minute cycle in a dream-like state.
Ultradian rhythms are biological cycles that repeat every 90 to 120 minutes during both sleep and waking hours. Unlike circadian rhythms, which follow daily light and dark cycles, these shorter patterns continue around the clock.
Sleep researcher Nathaniel Kleitman first mapped this basic rest–activity cycle in the 1950s. He discovered that the 90-minute pattern governing our sleep stages continues while we're awake, triggering cycles of deep focus and mental drift.
During the first 70 minutes of each cycle, brainwaves quicken and attention sharpens. Then comes a natural 20-minute decline, during which brainwaves slow and the mind enters a restorative state. It consolidates information and resets for the next peak.
At a peak, words flow and posture straightens naturally. In a valley, you reread, stall, drift.
Most of us reach for caffeine during these valleys or push through with willpower. Modern society equates constant availability with productivity, so we override these natural lulls with stimulants, mistaking resistance for effort.
The truth is, we are never uniformly awake. Consciousness rises and falls in measured intervals. Our mental capacity shifts and flows throughout each day.
The exhaustion we blame on busy schedules might come from spending the day at odds with our own brain.
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THE PRACTICE
Working With the Tide
The most powerful shift is honoring your natural rhythm.
Protect your peaks for focused work. When you feel alert and energized, direct that attention toward what matters most. Close unnecessary tabs. Silence notifications.
Respect your valleys for rest and recovery. Take short breaks, go for a walk, or allow yourself a 20–30 minute nap to restore overall energy.
Honoring these cycles multiplies effectiveness. Those who fight their rhythms spend the day moving against the current, rereading sentences, wrestling with work that might flow effortlessly an hour later.
What might shift if you scheduled your day around energy rather than time?
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