Rest, repair and reset
Dry Docking: Tiny pockets of rest are essential maintenance, not a reward.
Discover how micro practices woven into your day can keep your nervous system afloat.
What is Dry Docking?
Stepping out of constant motion
In seafaring, a dry dock is where a boat is brought out of the water for inspection, maintenance and repair, the essential work that keeps it seaworthy. In the WayPower framework, dry docking is rest as maintenance, not a luxury you earn when everything is done.
For highly sensitive, Autistic, ADHD and AuDHD nervous systems, rest isn't optional — it's how we stay afloat. Dry docking can look like time off, coaching or therapy. And it can also be several micro-resets woven throughout a single day.
Sometimes our nervous systems make the decision for us through burnout, fatigue or a flare-up. The invitation here is to weave in small, frequent moments of repair so that you don't have to reach that point before you rest and take stock.
Rest in many forms
Dry Docking can look like:
Micro-moments
Brief pockets of pause woven into your day: a slow breath before opening your inbox, softening your jaw before switching tabs, a minute of sensory rest between tasks. No Instagram story required.
Coaching & Focusing sessions
Intentional 1:1 time to tend to your inner compass — processing, reflecting, and restoring with compassionate, expert support. Focusing sessions offer a gentle, body-led way to sense into what you most need.
Longer seasons of repair
Sometimes burnout or your body's capacity makes the decision for you. Stepping back, rethinking your workload and allowing some things to fall can be the most courageous, necessary act of repair.
Micro-practices
Small moments of repair
Micro practices are brief, intentional pauses, usually just 30 seconds to two minutes, that interrupt the relentless Chronos tide of "next, next, next" and give your nervous system a restorative moment of being tended to.
Research increasingly shows that short, frequent mindfulness moments are as effective as longer sessions for reducing anxiety, improving focus and consolidating learning. For neurodivergent nervous systems especially, these micro-moments can be the difference between staying regulated and reaching burnout.
None of this has to be Instagram-worthy. You don't need extra time, equipment or the perfect quiet space. You only need the willingness to pause, even for 30 seconds.
01
Hand-on-heart check-in
Before you switch on your computer or open your phone, rest your hand gently on your heart. Pause and ask yourself: "What do I most need right now?" You don't need to answer — simply noticing is enough.
02
Gentle stretching and grounding
Between tasks or meetings, take a couple of gentle stretches. Notice your feet on the floor. Feel how different your body is after movement compared to how it felt when you were still and thinking.
03
Sensory window reset
Look out of the window or at something soothing. Soften your gaze, let your eyes rest rather than focus. Allow your peripheral vision to widen. This signals safety to your nervous system and invites the parasympathetic state.
04
Sensory saving
Pause with something to smell, touch or taste — a cup of tea, a scented hand cream, a smooth stone. Really feel yourself in your body as a sensory being. This is grounding and regulating, not indulgent.
05
A small dry-dock boundary between tasks
Create a brief, intentional pause between completing one thing and starting the next. Finish an email — then take three slow breaths before opening the next tab. End a meeting — then sit quietly for 30 seconds before the next thing. This tiny boundary tells your nervous system: "that was then, this is now."
Dry docking in my own life
On longer seasons of repair
I've had to spend longer periods of time dry docking in my own life more than once: stepping back from commitments, rethinking my workload, allowing some balls to fall, so I could repair my leaky hull, reset my buoyancy and remember who I am.
The real game-changer has been weaving in many, many small moments of repair into every single day, so that I don't have to reach burnout before I rest and take stock.
Those longer seasons have been important. They allowed me to make difficult yet necessary decisions about how I live my life. But it's the small, everyday moments of repair that have proved to be the most transformative, because they mean burnout doesn't have to be the only signal that I need to stop.
Time and time again, people emerge from both micro and macro dry docking with more capacity, self-trust and WayPower, and a more joyful way of living. You don't have to do this alone.
A Dry Docking reflection
Sense into the bigger picture
If you'd like, take a few moments with these questions. You might journal, draw, walk — or simply hold the question lightly as you go about your day.
Where do you notice a longing for repair?
This could relate to your physical body, mind, emotions, relationships, work, or something else. There's no right answer, simply notice what arises.
What is the tiniest, low-pressure next step?
A walk round the block, a cup of tea pause, a 10-minute tidy, a conversation, or scheduling an appointment. What would feel like enough for now?
How might you feel afterwards?
Imagine yourself on the other side of that tiny step. What shifts? What becomes possible? Hold that felt sense, even briefly. That's WayPower in motion.
The science of micro-breaks
Rest makes you more effective
If part of you worries that pausing will make you fall behind, you're not alone. Most of us in Western society were raised to believe that only constant effort counts, and that you can only rest once you're done.
And yet, research on learning and performance repeatedly shows that periods of downtime, even micro-breaks and brief moments of mind-wandering, help the brain consolidate information, regulate stress and improve focus and productivity afterwards.
Short, frequent mindfulness moments are as effective as longer sessions for reducing anxiety. For neurodivergent nervous systems especially, these micro-moments can provide the regulation that allows deeper, more sustained focus when it matters.
Your amazing mind uses rest to do behind-the-scenes processing. Creativity needs an incubation period before ideas can become actions. Choosing to pause, even for 30 seconds, is not wasting time. It's tending to the foundations so your future self has something sturdier and kinder to stand on.
Work with Kaye
You don't have to do this alone
A big part of my work — through coaching, groups and programmes — is walking alongside people as they navigate both their bigger dry dock seasons and the everyday art of weaving in small, sustainable rest.
1:1 Focusing Sessions
Focusing is a gentle, body-led practice that helps you tune into what you most need — making it perfect for dry docking, decisions and times of transition. Sessions are held on Zoom and offer a compassionate, unhurried space to reconnect to your inner compass.
WayPower Compass Call
Not sure where to start? A free 30-minute WayPower Compass Call is a chance to explore where you are, what you're longing for and whether working together feels like the right fit — with no pressure either way.
Your true north
Your helm
Creativity and playfulness
The blue sky
Why WayPower?
I set up Positively ADHD because I believe in a different way forward.
People with ADHD have so many gifts and incredible ways of thinking which can make a huge contribution to the world. Yet so much nuance is lost in the deficit-based, medical model which sees ADHD as a list of “symptoms” that need to be “treated”.
Many of us who were late-diagnosed or have self-diagnosed, have spent our whole lives in survival mode, because we did not know that our brains and nervous systems were different. We may have spent many years believing we were broken and have probably struggled with periods of depression, anxiety and burnout.
Whilst I don’t underestimate the difficulties that ADHD can cause, I also know that when we feel creative, hopeful, and connected to our purpose, anything is possible for us and our amazing minds.
Support for sensitive and neurodivergent people navigating life, work and everything in between.