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Driven Like an Engine: Why You Can't Relax Even When You Have the Time
It sometimes feels like it takes an Act of Congress to make me chill out.
I'm a life coach and breathwork facilitator, so I KNOW what ten minutes of rest does for a nervous system, and I teach it for a living. Still, I sometimes can't sit down until the sink is empty.
Many women I work with are like this-- driven like an engine to check boxes. We have no idea what we're racing toward, but whatever it is feels more important than those ten beautiful minutes — the walk, the nap, the chair on the porch, the coffee while it's still hot. We know the break would make us more productive, but we check the box instead.
If you've ever wondered why you can't relax even when you have the time, there's a name for what's happening. Three, once you start counting.
Hurry sickness has a name, and it's fifty years old
Two cardiologists, Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman, named it in 1974 in a book called Type A Behavior and Your Heart. Hurry sickness. Friedman defined it as "an insatiable desire to accomplish too much or take part in too many events in the amount of time available."
How they noticed is my favorite part. An upholsterer repairing their waiting-room furniture pointed out that the chairs only ever wore out at the front edge. Their patients had all been sitting on the edge of the seat.
Fifty years later, it has only gotten worse. The term is on its way into the Oxford English Dictionary, which tells you how many of us are perching.
Why the list beats the break every time
For years I filed this under willpower. Mine, specifically. Then I read the research. Three separate things are running in the background, and each one has a name.
So the box-checking is a chemical reward, plus a knock at the door, plus a closing window. You have been trying to out-will three things at once.
What are we racing toward?
In 2010, three researchers published a paper called "Idleness Aversion and the Need for Justifiable Busyness." People dread being idle, they found, and will take almost any excuse to be busy instead. The excuses didn't have to be good ones. Flimsy worked fine.
Their conclusion: many of the goals people pursue may be nothing more than justifications to keep themselves busy.
I said on a podcast this month that the boxes will never all be checked. My two paddle boards spent the summer leaning against the garage, waiting for the weekend I'd be caught up. There wasn't one.
Name it to tame it
I'm a big believer in name it to tame it. You can't catch a thing until you have a word for it. Once you have the word, you get a beat between the urge and the next box. That beat is where the whole thing turns.
Here's what I do inside it. Three moves, all small on purpose.
What I see when women start naming it
It doesn't work every time. Some days I say the words and empty the sink anyway, and the paddle boards can confirm it.
What I see consistently is this. A woman with a name for the engine stops calling it laziness. Once she stops calling it laziness, she stops apologizing for the walk. The break stops being a reward she has to earn and becomes a thing she does on a Wednesday afternoon. That's the whole shift.
Hurrying and overwhelm go hand in hand. If the engine has been running so long you can't find the off switch, my free workbook, Escaping the Bermuda Triangle of Overwhelm, starts there. It clears the mental clutter first, then names the one small step that gets you moving.
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