By Coach JoyGenea with support from Notion AI. Image from ChatGPT
If you feel more stressed after doing “productive” work, you might not need more discipline. You might need a nervous system reset.
Last week, one of my high-performing unconventional leaders showed up to our coaching session completely out of sorts.
They were talking fast. Their breathing was shallow. Their eyes were darting around.
I asked what they were doing right before the call.
They said: “I had five extra minutes, so I jumped onto our internal message board to see how many problems I could solve before we started.”
In other words: a high-cue, high-reward dopamine sprint right before a conversation that required presence, reflection, and deeper thinking.
What was happening (in plain language)
When your brain gets a burst of novelty, urgency, and micro-wins (messages, tickets, Slack, news, market updates), your system can go into “more, faster, now” mode.
That can look like:
- Racing thoughts
- Tight chest or shallow breathing
- Irritability
- A scattered “I can’t land the plane” feeling
- Feeling almost sick when you finally stop
There is nothing “wrong” with your brain. This is a predictable state shift.
The 10-minute reset that worked (and why)
We did not have time for a workout to burn it off.
And if I had told them to meditate, it would not have worked in that moment. Even though they are a good meditator.
Instead, I asked them to close their eyes and describe the last beach vacation home their family rented.
Not the story.
The sensory details:
- What did the air smell like?
- What could they hear?
- What color was the light?
- What did the floor feel like?
- Where was the furniture placed?
Within five minutes, their face had more color and their breathing slowed.
Around the ten-minute mark, their body finally relaxed.
Then we started coaching.
Why this works better than “just meditate”
For an ADHD brain (medicated or not), going from high stimulation to nothing can feel like slamming on the brakes.
A brain in a dopamine sprint will often:
- Panic in silence
- Fill the void with more urgency
- Turn “meditation” into one more thing to do perfectly
What they needed was almost nothing, but not nothing.
A gentle task that holds attention without adding urgency.
The “High Cue / High Reward Timeout” (try this)
Use this when you notice you are revved up, especially right before:
- A meeting
- A hard conversation
- Creative work
- Writing
- Decision-making
1) Stop the firehose (60 seconds)
Close tabs. Put your phone face down. Step away from the input.
2) Pick a low-stakes focus (5–10 minutes)
Choose one:
- Describe a calm place in sensory detail (beach house, cabin, childhood room)
- Look at a tree and track shapes and shadows
- Make a warm drink and fully track smell, temperature, and taste
- Do “three slow exhale” breathing: inhale normally, exhale longer than you inhale
3) Re-enter with one sentence
Say out loud or write:
- “What matters most in the next 30 minutes is…”
This tells your brain what it is doing now, so it stops searching for the next hit.
A quick self-check
If you regularly feel more stressed after technical work, you might be stacking high-cue/high-reward inputs like:
- Message boards
- Slack
- News
- Market trends
- Social feeds
Those aren’t “bad.”
But if you do them right before work that requires empathy, reflection, or clarity, your body may still be running the previous program.
The takeaway
You do not always need to push through. Sometimes you need to downshift.
A 10-minute timeout can protect your brain, your relationships, and your results.
If you try this, notice what changes in:
- Your breathing
- Your pace of speech
- How quickly you can listen
- How clear your thinking feels
That data will teach you how to lead yourself in real time and this is self-coaching 101.