The Magic of Reframing a Day Off as a Zero Day
At the end of January, I worked furiously to meet two deadlines. The first involved rewriting a previous post as a short essay for publication in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book. I learned of the deadline just three days before the due date. I found out about the second deadline, an application to the Tin House Summer Workshop, a few weeks earlier but hadn’t really considered submitting until seeing that my new favorite author, Melissa Febos, would be on faculty. The application required a writing sample as well as a few short blurbs about myself, my latest project, and my creative process. Finally, after a three-day marathon of writing and revisions, I clicked “Submit” on the application and announced to my household that I’d met both deadlines with a few hours to spare.
Despite the excitement of getting my work into the world, I awoke on the first of February with the first concentration hangover I’ve experienced since leaving academia. Screen-induced headache. Mushy brain. A general sense of operating in a fog. I had all the familiar symptoms.
In my previous life, I powered through these bodily protests. Sometimes I took breaks to look out the window or run the stairs, but Zoom meetings, nonstop emails, and class preparation overshadowed my need to rest. Before my body had truly recovered, the need to get more work done always propelled me back to the computer. I pushed myself until my brain refused to form coherent sentences and my sense of self dissolved into a general fuzziness of being.
Post-academia, I’m learning to listen to my body, but not until the first concentration hangover of my new life did I truly understand the importance of devoting entire days to honoring my body and soul.
In backpacker parlance, a zero day is a day of resting, refueling, and refilling. While zero days earn their title from the lack of miles gained, these “do-nothing” days actually make weeks-long hiking trips possible. After the monotony of trail food, fresh-cooked high-calorie meals refuel the body. Stopping in a designated town also means refilling crucial but dwindling supplies. Knowing their importance to a successful trip, backpackers plan zero days as meticulously as days on the trail.
Why, I wondered on that recent February morning, don’t we incorporate zero days into our lives with the same thoughtfulness and intentionality as backpackers? A zero day has a life-giving purpose of ensuring we can continue on in our sometimes grueling lives. Taking a zero day would mean reveling in the satisfaction of the previous days’ hard work while also honoring my body through rest, nutritious food, and mental and emotional downtime.
To my surprise, reframing the day as a zero day transformed my lingering guilt over doing “nothing” into the lightness of relaxation. It allowed me to release all expectations of myself and surrender to simply being. The judgment that had threatened to force me into action receded. I lounged in bed, read a novel, and went walking with a friend. As I listened to my body and floated between desires, time slipped past. Much more than a day off, my zero day honored an intentional choice to care for my body and soul.
Two weeks later, I still feel the exhilaration of putting my work into the world. But rather than the “It’s not enough” dread that usually overshadows my accomplishments, this memory is wrapped in a blanket of gratitude.
My body likes to work hard. It also needs rest. In the graceful surrender of a zero day, I found the strength to truly let go.
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