When it comes to deepening your learning and connecting to like-hearted individuals, nothing beats the power of a live event or conference.
But attending conferences, events, summits, and workshops can feel draining. They involve travel and time away.
Most people rush back to “real life” immediately without pausing to process what they learned. Time to recover isn’t even on the agenda.
This is a mistake. Conferences and events are work, not vacation. If you don’t take time to restore your energy and recharge you won’t integrate the new information and turn it into knowledge. And you won’t have the power and fortitude to implement the new ideas you received.
Over the years, I’ve developed many post-conference rituals that I follow after attending an event, workshop, conference, or seminar. The purpose of these rituals is to integrate all that I learned during the event and restore my energy.
It starts the day after the conference, which I treat as part of the event itself.
Read More: 5 Reasons to Take Off the Day After a Conference
It continues when I get home, with several rituals designed to help me recover, restore my energy, and refocus my attention.
11 Post-Conference Recovery Rituals
Think of these rituals as the final stage of a conference. They are like savasana in yoga practice: the pose that integrates the benefits of all preceding poses.
(1) Sleep
Sleep is a crucial part of the learning process. This is when the brain synthesizes the ideas it has absorbed. I give myself permission to sleep a little later on the first couple of days after an event.
(2) Exercise
For me, every morning starts with a workout. My workout is when I can integrate the ideas I’m learning and insights I’ve received into my physiology.
This is when information becomes knowledge.
Also, you just spent a few days sitting perhaps more than usual. Your body is likely craving movement.
(3) Meditation
Meditation practice is part of my daily workout and something I do throughout an event. As part of my recovery process, I sit for longer periods and add time for meditation throughout the day.
Like sleep, the brain processes things on a deeper level during meditation. It helps take my overactive mind out of the processing and allows my heart to lead.
(4) Write/Journal
One sacrifice of attending an event is that I must cut short my writing time. I squeeze it into small spaces.
Before jumping back into work, I carve out space for immersive writing and journaling to process events that happened and write through ideas.
(5) Physical Self-Care
For me, this almost always includes having my hair washed and blown out.
Beyond the “feel-good” self-care aspect of this, getting my hair blown out is one of my best productivity rituals. It’s true multi-tasking, as I can sit in the chair and do other things while someone else dries and styles my hair. It’s a timesaver: what takes me 90 minutes takes someone else 30–45 minutes.
And, I cannot overstate how clean hair brings clarity to everything else. 🙂
Beyond a blowout, I look at what my physical body needs to help me feel good and well cared for. A manicure or pedicure, a massage, a visit to the chiropracter or bodyworker. These are not just indulgences.
When we feel our best, we bring more energy to our work.
(6) Wander
After so much structured time during an event, I need the restorative powers of play and unstructured time to wander and just be. Sometimes this looks like laying on a chair.
Other times it might be a walk on a beach or browsing through stores.
If you think this is “wasted time,” think again: studies show that this type of unstructured time is crucial for the brain to connect ideas and process information.
The work is happening below the surface.
(7) Play
Play is a form of active rest and recovery. Like wandering or working out, it preoccupies the mind with other tasks to facilitate the real work of integration.
While I’m playing, I know the wheels are turning and important synthesis is happening below the surface.
(8) Nourish
Perhaps you don’t always make the best food choices when you travel or get busy. Sometimes I can eat too many protein bars or nuts.
Even if you had nutritious food during your event, you likely ate your meals with others. This is great for connecting with people, but it takes your focus off of your food.
Nourishment is not just about the food you’re eating, but also how you eat it. Eating alone allows you to focus on your food and the sensations you feel while eating it.
For me, eating a mindful meal is another way to calm my nervous system from the swirl of event energy.
(9) Connect With Nature
Most conferences and events take place in windowless convention centers or hotel ballrooms. You’re lucky if you get a window in the room.
Add to this the long hours and a schedule that breaks from your routine, and suddenly you find yourself not knowing what day or time it is.
To counter this effect and realign with your natural rhythms it helps to spend time in nature.
Walking through a park or along the beach, seeing the sunrise and sunset, feeling the fresh air, reconnect me to my circadian rhythms and get me back in my flow.
(10) Yoga
After an event I like to do a yin or restorative yoga class, preferably in the evening. (This helps with sleep.)
These types of yoga allow the nervous system to restore itself. It takes us out of fight-or-flight and activates the parasympathetic nervous system — rest and digest.
It’s another way to calm the energy of the ideas that start to swirl in my mind after an event. And it connects my body to my breath.
(11) Self-Compassion
Finally, I bring a healthy dose of self-compassion to the process. There’s so much pressure to implement and follow up immediately. I’ve learned that I’m not a machine.
Taking time to recover and restore my energy makes me more effective in the long run. It helps me integrate what I’ve learned and absorbed during the event.
What do you do to recover and restore after an event? Please share your rituals and tips in the comments!
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