Why Rushing Is Draining Your Energy

If you always play podcasts or videos at 2x speed… and then quietly swear when someone takes forever to make their point - this one’s for you.

You probably know the pattern well.
You gulp water like it’s a competitive sport between Zoom calls. You wash dishes like you’re in a race. Your morning routine is timed to the minute with Swiss precision. Lunch happens at your laptop - or not at all. And still, no matter how much you get done, the thought creeps in: “It’s never enough.”

It feels like efficiency.
But really, it’s dysregulation.

Back in the 1950s, cardiologist Meyer Friedman coined a term for this: “hurry sickness.” He noticed the armrests of his waiting-room chairs were wearing out unusually fast, because patients couldn’t sit back. They were perched on the edge, tense, ready to spring. This observation eventually led Friedman and Rosenman to link chronic stress behaviours with heart disease, what we now know as “Type A” behaviour.

And here’s what I see today: hurry sickness shows up in three ways: physical, mental, and emotional rushing.

1. Physical rushing

This is the obvious one. Running around the house as if there’s a stopwatch on you. Brushing your teeth while checking emails. Dashing through your morning like it’s a military drill.

Your conscious mind might know there’s no emergency, but your body is behaving like there is. You’re sending constant signals to your nervous system: go faster, keep going, don’t stop.

2. Mental rushing

This is subtler…or so we think. It’s the constant pressure to squeeze more into every minute. Drinking water stressfully while replying to messages. Timing your commute to the exact second. Staying put in front of your laptop yet feeling like you’re running a thought race in your mind. Telling yourself, “I have one minute to finish this.”.

And yet you end up spending hours scrolling or procrastinating. The brain craves stimulation, but not necessarily productivity. Mental rushing doesn’t mean you’re effective; it just keeps your mind in a loop of urgency.

3. Emotional rushing

This one often flies under the radar. It’s the spike of panic when feedback arrives. The “I’m failing” spiral when things don’t go to plan. The urge to people-please because slowing down long enough to say “no” feels too risky.

Your nervous system interprets emotional discomfort as danger, triggering the same fight-or-flight response you’d need if a bear were actually in the room.

The science backs this up. When your amygdala senses a threat - physical, mental, or emotional - it alerts the hypothalamus, the body’s command centre. The sympathetic nervous system slams the gas pedal: adrenaline surges, heart rate climbs, muscles tighten, blood sugar floods your bloodstream. You’re in fight-or-flight.

Useful if you’re dodging a car.
Far less useful if it’s just Monday’s inbox.

What happens over time? This chronic activation doesn’t just make you impatient. It keeps weight stuck, disrupts digestion, crashes your energy, and leaves you spinning like you’re on a hamster wheel - day after day.

Rushing isn’t productivity. It’s your stress response in disguise.

There are a number of ways to start addressing this loop and when we work together, we take things step by step, identifying the triggers, and giving you the tools to manage your state.

As you’ve already gotten this far, let me share a few tips you can take away today to start regulating:

• You need to interrupt the state. When you notice the pattern - Stop. Pause for a moment.

• Remind your body: “I’m safe. I don’t need to rush.”

• Slow your pace, even when it feels unbearable at first.
  

When you lean into steadiness, you reclaim energy. You sharpen focus. You expand your capacity.

Frantic energy leaves your loved ones with the “leftovers” of you at the end of the day.
Steady pacing lets you lead with presence, efficiency, and ease.

More Energy. More Capacity.

More of you where it matters most.