Here’s a riddle for you.
Q: What is the one thing you can never get enough of?
A: Something you didn’t really want in the first place.
This paradox captures what happens when we “buffer” – constantly reaching for more of something external that never quite satisfies the internal need we’re trying to meet. We keep scrolling, sipping, shopping, or streaming, chasing a feeling of “enough” that remains perpetually out of reach.
We all have those days – the ones where we walk through the door after work, drop our bags, and head straight for the wine, the remote, or our phones. That feeling of needing to disconnect is so powerful, so immediate. We want to get off the merry-go-round, power down, be mindless. And what we often turn to is buffering.
What is Buffering?
Buffering happens when we use external things to distract or escape how we’re feeling emotionally. It’s that glass of wine after a stressful day, the mindless scrolling when we feel bored, or the online shopping spree when we’re feeling inadequate. Negative emotions, even a low-grade restlessness or mild melancholy, can be difficult to tolerate for long, and many of us have not been taught the tools or skills to work with, to allow, our emotions.
Here’s the thing about our human experience: it encompasses a wide spectrum of both positive and negative emotions, pleasant and unpleasant feelings. Emotional wellness isn’t a steady state of happiness; it’s a much more rich, varied mixture of the positive and negative in response to all we experience in our human lives. That’s right – feeling uncomfortable emotions approximately half the time is actually our best-case scenario. Take a moment to really absorb that, because one of the greatest sources of our suffering is the pressure and shame we layer on to our confusion, our sadness, our fear. (For more on this, see my last post about clean and dirty pain.)
Our primitive brain — the oldest part of our brain which evolved to keep us safe from physical danger — is wired to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and conserve energy. This served our ancestors well, but in our modern world of ever-available pleasure, it’s increasingly problematic. We’re bombarded with opportunities for distraction and instant gratification. Industries have perfected the art of concentrating pleasure – making food, entertainment, and online activities hyper-palatable, even addictive.
How Do You Know If You’re Buffering?
(Please approach this inquiry with curiosity and compassion, not self-judgment!)
You can identify buffering by asking yourself three questions:
- What prompted the activity? What emotion were you feeling, and did the activity distract from or numb that emotion?
- Were you fully present for the experience, or did you quickly check out?
- How did you feel afterward?
Buffering typically leaves you with a net negative result – you might feel foggy the next morning, regret how you spent your time, or face financial consequences. You temporarily avoided uncomfortable emotions, but actually layered on more negative feelings in the process.
The Hidden Costs
Beyond just the immediate negative consequences, buffering creates several deeper problems:
- It prevents us from feeling and processing our negative emotions, which is essential for emotional health.
- It blocks important information about what needs addressing in our lives. Emotions are critical data points, telling us where change needs to happen.
- It mimics rest without actually providing recovery, often interfering with the quality sleep or true down time we desperately need.
Interestingly, we don’t only buffer against profound emotions. We often use it to avoid minor discomforts like boredom, restlessness, or annoyance. And we can buffer with “positive” activities too – working, planning, cleaning, learning – anything that helps us avoid being present with uncomfortable feelings.
True Rest and Repair
In preventing burnout, one of the most important distinctions we need to understand is the difference between buffering and true rest. This small shift in awareness can dramatically change our relationship to our own emotions, and our capacity to recover from stress.
So what’s the alternative to buffering?
First, don’t judge yourself when you catch yourself buffering. See it as a signal, and ask yourself what feeling you’re trying to avoid. Make space for the emotion and give it some attention. Call it by its name. The more we can observe and attend to our emotions, the sooner they can process and move through us.
Next, ask yourself — what is it that I truly desire or need? Connection? Meaning? Rest?
Rest and repair activities actually fill your cup — unlike buffering, which ultimately drains it.
Think about it this way: during a stressful workday, your sympathetic nervous system — your “gas pedal” — gets activated repeatedly. That’s why you might come home feeling both “tired and wired” simultaneously. Rest and repair activities engage your parasympathetic nervous system – your “brake pedal” – helping you genuinely recover.
True rest isn’t about disconnecting from feelings, but rather about reconnecting – with your body, with nature, with those you love. True rest isn’t mindless, it’s mindful. Instead of numbing out, you’re tuning in.
Some ideas for rest and repair:
- Unplugging from devices
- Connecting with loved ones (including pets)
- Meditation or prayer
- Laughter
- Yoga
- Breathwork
- Time in nature
- Physical movement
- Music
- Learning something new
- Play
- Self-care practices like massage or a warm bath
- Hobbies that create “flow”
- Doing absolutely nothing
- Doing just one thing, with full presence
Whatever resonates with you, ritualize it. Plug it into your calendar for those times when you’re most vulnerable to succumb to buffering. The amount of time matters less than the intention you set. Create a protected container in your life that’s dedicated to genuine rest and repair.
When you can override your default mode and avoid buffering, you’ll be empowered to give yourself what you, in fact, really wanted in the first place.
