Can our brains really get a charley horse? In this week’s post, I follow that question into an exploration of resistance, the unexpected openings of expansion, and what it ultimately takes to create new experiences and evolve.
DECEMBER 19, 2025
It’s not every day that I can actually feel my brain straining but over the weekend, I experienced exactly such a moment.
Going back to school has been a challenge and over the past few weeks I have repeatedly asked myself if I made the right decision.
Running a business, spending time with family, managing the household and scrambling with endless assignments is a lot more involved than I had initially anticipated.
I realized over the past weeks that the classes do not involve a lot of hands-on learning, but hundreds of pages of reading and writing assignments.
In general, I love to read. You will find my house full of actual paper books because I find something sacred in holding a physical book in my hands rather than an e-reader. I love browsing through a bookstore and finding little treasures that I am excited to explore.
I also love to write. One book, hundreds of blog posts, articles, and newsletters later and I still love connecting and sharing that transformational space that a well-written piece offers.
Academic writing is very different. Everything has to be critically analyzed, responded to, cited, and thought through. I have to change my voice from the usual conversational tone to sounding “scholarly”, which really takes the soul out of writing for me.
And what I dislike most of all is writing on a deadline.
The pressure to get assignments in by a certain date and spend an all-nighter to make it work is not something I missed from my early university days. It is tiring, draining, and downright exhausting. I feel that most people I know don’t produce their best work when they are sleep-deprived and can’t even think straight anymore.
Over the weekend, I reached this point in the middle of the night from Saturday to Sunday, having worked on assignments for nearly three days without real pause.
It started with my eyes straining and I could feel the dryness beginning to hurt.
Slowly, the muscles in my shoulders and neck tensed up, a sensation I became aware of when it hurt to move my arms over the keyboard.
And finally, a headache crept from my neck across my head and temples and I had to shut my computer down. The nausea was too much and I felt like every part of my brain was suffering from charley horse.
I experienced what I can only describe as a “brain cramp” in the most uncomfortable way.
The only thing left to do was go to bed.
I slept for over twelve hours and when I woke up my headache was gone. I checked in with my brain and the cramp seemed to have resolved itself.
Did I really just wear out my brain? It reminded me of hitting the message limit in ChatGPT and being told to wait for a few hours.
On Sunday, I was almost afraid to turn on my computer because I had no desire to feel the sickening feeling of a “brain cramp” again. Instead, I chose to cook a nice meal, enjoy a yoga practice, and catch up on some shows I had missed.
I did absolutely nothing productive all day, but my brain felt amazing. My creativity exploded and I had so many exciting ideas for the business. My husband and I shared a leisurely lunch together and had a fun conversation, something we don’t often have time for. My body appreciated the attention I gave it through movement and breath. And I even enjoyed the soothing sound of raindrops hitting the window.
I started to wonder how many times I pushed my brain to its limits. The late nights working and studying. The relentless drive to create, function, organize, and manage everything. When was the last time I had actually given my brain idle time without expecting a result?
The scariest thing was I couldn’t remember the last time I did nothing.
What if we built idle time into our days with intention? Could it be a restoral where our brains regenerate, rebalance, and even rewire? Maybe teaching our brains and nervous systems idle time could be healing in itself to change our stress response patterns, anxiety cycles, and exhaustion loops?
When was the last time you gave your brain idle time and how did it feel? Not to be confused with boredom, but intentional time set aside to just be?
Could we affect our stress responses in these moments by teaching our brains a new experience of being?
Maybe that is the invitation.
To remember that restoration doesn’t always come from doing more, but from stepping away. To allow the nervous system to find a rhythm that isn’t driven by deadlines. To let our minds stretch in directions they cannot reach when they are pushed to the limit.
When we create that kind of space, even briefly, we might find that what returns is not just relief but the very capacity to keep evolving
By Petra Brunnbauer
Petra Brunnbauer is an award-winning Mind-Body Coach, founder of The Jōrni®, host of the globally-ranked Jōrni Podcast, and author of The Functional Freeze Formula™. With a Master’s in Psychology and as a doctoral student in Mind-Body Medicine, Petra is committed to advancing holistic approaches to health and healing.