Exhaustion

Okay, talking point: when does exhaustion go too far? It’s a topic that’s been buzzing around in my head a lot. We’re musicians, we push ourselves to the point of total and complete exhaustion, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Go to bed at 3:00am get up at 5:00am, run on two hours of sleep every night for the rest of our lives and still somehow not snap at people?

If that situation doesn’t feel familiar, maybe try this one: go to bed at midnight, wake up at 7:00 or 7:30, you got a decent amount of sleep, maybe you can get in sometime to yourself to work out, but maybe you are then expected to be around people (and functionally interacting with them) from 9:00-9:00. You come home and you don’t want to people, but you have a concert, so you have to. You get to bed at midnight, and wake up at 7:30, but you’re still tired and introverted.

Feel “targeted” yet, like these stories hit too close to home some days?

It’s not a topic we’re supposed to discuss. Period. Not in music, not in business, just don’t. Our society dictates we’re not allowed to be tired, we aren’t allowed to be introverted, we aren’t allowed to be, well…us. Every introvert I know has a coping mechanism, until they don’t. For me it’s caffeine, running, and meditating. I will intake caffeine at ridiculous levels so that I can be social in what I do. I will run to get my space from people and boost my endorphins in order to be social. I will meditate to get some peace and quiet and let my mind recharge a little bit. Most of the time these things work well, until my people-meter, usually unexpectedly, crashes.

That happened to me last night. I was supposed to be at dinner with friends being social and I walked in, hit by a wave of noise and laughter and over stimulation and, after being around people for three hours, knowing I’d have two more hours around people, in general, I couldn’t do it. I retreated to a corner in the sun, by myself to “photosynthesize,” as one of my friends called it.

So the question becomes less a question of: how do I cope, though please share your coping mechanisms if you’re comfortable doing so and more a question of how do we recognize these problems, find our space to recharge when we do crash and successfully come back to the real world. It’s hard, because the real world doesn’t like to accept that we all can’t go full throttle 24/7, 365 days a week. It likes to believe we can.

Obviously, the best ways for us to come back are to not let our energy get so low that we have to disappear, but it happens. One time it happened, I remember a fight that occurred because no one understood what was going on. In the end, that fight became a good thing because all parties understood each other better, but in the professional world, that isn’t always feasible. Do you take a day off of work to be alone and recharge? Do you try to hide how tired you are until the end of the week when you can hide away from everyone? Is there a different method that hasn’t been touched on here? It’d be a great conversation to have.

Beyond that, how do you find all of this affects your music? Does it make it harder to play when you’re in that state of mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion? Does it make you a stronger performer because you get to go into your performance box and not talk to anyone, except through your instrument? Share your thoughts and ideas. Let’s have a conversation.