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experiencelifemag.com
Print › | Back ›
Give Yourself a Break
Smart, super-practical reasons to build more idleness, downtime and moments of
enjoyment into your busy life.
By Experience Life Staff |
July-August 2009 |
Making Space for Monkey Business
In Praise of Idleness
The Eureka Factor
Respect Your Ultradian Rhythms
Time-Out Tips
At Google, goofing off is the way to go. In fact, it’s encouraged. Engineers
at the Mountain View, Calif., tech powerhouse are told to spend 20 percent of
their work hours — whether a couple of hours a day, or a full day a week — doing
exactly what they please. They can sit and stare into space, take a nap, or
wander the corporate campus and let their minds roam free. At first glance,
this looks like a clever (though potentially costly) ploy to retain finicky
employees. But Google’s 80/20 concept taps some of the latest research on
employee productivity. Wide-ranging studies show that taking time out at work or
at home to rest, daydream, be silly, and pursue amusements of various kinds
has physiological and psychological benefits that can bolster well-being,
improve concentration, boost problem-solving capability and enhance
creativity. Google’s pro-downtime approach has given rise to some
amazing innovations. GMail, Google News and Google Ocean (which allows you to
virtually explore the seas) are just three successful products employees have
created during their “free” time. A fourth, Mars in Google Earth (an add-on map
of Mars’s terrain in Google Earth 5.0), launched in February. Its creator,
software engineer Michael Weiss-Malik, says the time his employer allows him to
just have fun with ideas is crucial to the creative process. “I got to
stretch my wings and do something out of the ordinary that also happens to
benefit the public’s understanding of science,” says Weiss-Malik. “And because
these are ‘side projects’ that don’t always benefit initially from full-support
resources, you’re forced to get creative and scrappy, which means you sometimes
come up with solutions you wouldn’t have thought of before, but that in
hindsight wind up being superior to what you probably would have done had it
been a ‘real’ project.” Of course, most of us don’t work for companies
quite as forward thinking as Google. But it’s not just corporate policy that
prevents us from taking breaks and goofing off more often. It’s our own mistaken
notions about the best ways to wring the most from our busy days, and our addled
brains. For the most part, we think of off-task idleness and play as
indulgences or distractions from what we “should” be doing. But these apparently
low-productivity pursuits can have some surprisingly pragmatic benefits, helping
us become more effective thinkers, more productive workers, and healthier,
happier, more resilient individuals. All of which means that pursuing random
moments of “unproductive” time might be a lot more productive than you
think.
Making Space for Monkey Business
Even for those of us who
really enjoy what we do for a living, our jobs are first and foremost about
getting work done — and done well. That’s why we often relegate what we see as
less productive pursuits (say, staring out the window, sharing laughs with a
coworker or showing around pictures of our kids in their Halloween costumes) to
the back burner. Even at home, it seems we’re forever on a mission — to keep up
with the laundry, the kids’ extracurricular activities, the bills. It can keep a
person running 24/7, making it feel nearly impossible to “steal time” for purely
enjoyable or relaxing engagements. “Lots of individuals have that sense of
eternal responsibility — they feel bound to the demands of work and the pressure
to pay for their mortgage, their car, their kids in college,” says Stuart Brown,
MD, a retired psychiatrist in Carmel Valley, Calif., and coauthor of Play: How
It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul (Penguin,
2009). “The American way, starting with the dualism of good and bad in
Judeo-Christian tradition, the survival demands of a frontier society, the
grinding workload fostered by the industrial revolution, has not always
prioritized the experience of playfulness. And that’s a huge loss.” In part,
it’s a loss precisely because of the key ways in which downtime and
self-renewing enjoyments can help us upgrade our overall levels of happiness
while simultaneously boosting our creativity and mental clarity (for more on
this, read on and also see “Ha Ha!, Aha!, and Ahh!” in this issue). And, in part,
it’s a loss because when emphasis on productivity is unmitigated and
unrelenting, we experience diminishing returns that truly diminish us:
Accumulated stress spills over into all areas of our lives, lowering our overall
happiness, robbing us of pleasure, and adversely affecting both our health and
personal effectiveness. It’s for this reason that personal effectiveness
expert Stephen Covey, author of the now-classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People (Free Press, 1989), dedicated the seventh of his famed Seven Habits to
“sharpening the saw,” insisting that only a consistent, continuous dedication to
self-renewal (rest, play, exercise, personal exploration) can empower one to
maintain the sharp mental and physical edge necessary to properly execute the
other six habits. “Without this renewal,” writes Covey on his Web site, “the
body becomes weak, the mind mechanical, the emotions raw, the spirit
insensitive, and the person selfish.” You can renew and better yourself through
appropriate rest and relaxation, notes Covey, “or you can totally burn yourself
out by overdoing everything.” So how does one begin to build more
self-renewing breaks and amusements into everyday life? And what benefits
can one expect if one does invest a little more energy in simply powering down,
chilling out, and even goofing around now and then? The answers are nestled
right between your ears.
In Praise of Idleness
Most of us have been led to believe that the
off-task brain is a little like an idling engine — puttering along at rest until
given a specific task to accomplish or a problem to focus on. But new research
involving the use of PET and MRI imaging technologies suggests that in reality
our brains maintain an almost constant level of activity, even when we appear to
be doing nothing. In fact, according to Marcus Raichle, PhD, a
neuroscientist at Washington University in St. Louis, a number of
interconnecting brain regions kick into a sort of neurological and metabolic
hyperdrive whenever given a break from tasks that require more directed, highly
focused attention. You can see it on a PET scan: The same areas of brain that
light up when subjects allow their minds to wander from a problem or focused
task promptly dim whenever they are asked to actively concentrate on something.
And when those mind-wandering areas are active, they gobble glucose at an
astonishing rate. Based on the fact that the brain diverts attention from its
demanding “downtime” activities only when called upon to divert blood, oxygen
and glucose for more urgent purposes, Raichle and other brain researchers are
coming to the conclusion that whatever the brain is doing while apparently doing
nothing may actually be profoundly important. In a 2001 paper published in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Raichle and his colleague
Gordon Shulman, PhD, identified the cluster of regions in which this activity
occurred, including the medial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and posterior
cingulate, which represent an arch through the midline of the brain. They dubbed
these areas the “default network” and have continued to focus research efforts
on precisely how the network operates — and for what purpose — ever
since. What’s clear so far is that the default network utilizes strong
connections with the parts of our brains that process executive
(decision-making) functions, memories and content we deem to be of emotional
significance or significant to our self-interest. And when active, parts of the
network devour 30 percent more caloric energy (in the form of glucose) than
nearly any other parts of the brain, suggesting that when it’s working, it’s
working hard. Precisely what it’s working on is the subject of ongoing
research, but Raichle and many of his fellow researchers now hypothesize that
the default network is responsible for processing the memories, observations and
other random unsorted bits of material we’ve got floating around in our
knowledge banks at any given time, potentially for the purposes of linking them
or assessing their potential significance to our present and future
circumstances and decisions. It may be that the default network is burning
though glucose, in part, to create the amino acids and neurotransmitters it
requires to build and maintain new synaptic circuits. The act of daydreaming,
in particular, seems to send the default network into action, and researchers
now suspect this much maligned activity may be one of the prime tools the brain
employs in sorting and making sense of the chaotic bits and bytes we take in on
a daily basis. In other words, giving your conscious mind a break now and then —
not keeping it constantly focused on important matters — may be among the best
ways to invite insights, ideas and solutions.
The Eureka Factor
You’ve
probably heard plenty of people acknowledge that they get their best ideas in
the shower. And you’ve no doubt heard the story of Archimedes, who shouted his
now-legendary “Eureka!” when he stepped into the bath, saw his bathwater rise
and suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the
volume of the part of his body he’d submerged, abruptly intuiting the answer
to what had previously been an intractable mathematical problem. There’s a
reason so much genius has occurred in bathrooms, according to cognitive
neuroscientist Mark Jung-Beeman, PhD, and it’s the same reason we often get
great ideas while puttering in the garden, getting a facial, taking a walk or
just waking up from a nap: Because these are precisely the types of
circumstances in which we’re not trying to come up with genius ideas, or really
any ideas at all. Our body is relatively relaxed, our brain is being allowed to
do whatever it likes, its circuits freed up for whatever associations and
information-shuttling activities it deems worthwhile. And it’s those random
associations that seem key both to large-scale breakthroughs and handy “aha!”
moments. Jung-Beeman, a researcher at Northwestern University in Evanston,
Ill., has made a career of mapping the brain circuits involved in moments of
spontaneous insight. And he has found that while the brain lays much of the
groundwork for insight by expending focused attention on a particular problem,
certain parts of the brain must actually relax and be allowed to wander a bit
for the necessary connections and associations (most of which are churned up by
the more loosely organized right hemisphere) to be made. In studies of
subjects attempting to solve complex puzzles, psychologist Joy Bhattacharya,
PhD, a researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London, has been able to use
electroencephalography (EEG) to successfully predict moments of insight up to
eight seconds before the insights occur. He’s found that one key predictive
indicator of an upcoming “aha!” is the presence of alpha waves (a brainwave
pattern associated with relaxation) emanating from the right hemisphere of the
brain. Such activity makes the mind more receptive to new and unusual ideas,
Bhattacharya suggests. This explains, perhaps, why big-idea guys like Albert
Einstein and mathematician Henri Poincaré have credited their best insights to
the unconscious work their minds did while they were taking a break from what
they ostensibly did best. The upshot? Beyond a certain point, sitting for
hours at your desk and working harder and longer to solve that problem or
come up with that big idea may actually work against you. And that “certain
point” may be mere minutes from now.
Respect Your Ultradian Rhythms
Just as your body keeps pace with circadian
rhythms (patterns related to 24-hour, night-and-day cycles), it also
responds to ultradian rhythms — patterns that occur many times throughout the
day. One of the most important of those rhythms regulates natural fluctuations
of activity and rest, and exertion and recovery. According to psychobiology
researcher Ernest Rossi, PhD, a leading expert on ultradian rhythms and how they
affect human biology, people are programmed to want to take a 20-minute break
after every 90 minutes of intense focus or activity. And it’s not just that we
want a break, says Rossi, we actually need one if we hope to operate at peak
effectiveness and efficiency. This is true right down to the cellular level.
During an active phase, a cell extracts energy from adenosine triphosphate, or
ATP, changing it to adenosine diphosphate, or ADP. During rest, the cell uses
oxygen and blood glucose to change the ADP back to ATP — the stuff our bodies
use for energy. During periods of focused mental or physical activity,
explains Rossi, the body gradually runs through its available stores of a
variety of the energetic and chemical compounds that allow us to think
clearly and begins accumulating stress-related chemicals and byproducts that
begin to interfere with our physical coordination and thought processes.
Typically, this buildup occurs over the course of 90 to 120 minutes, and may
manifest as brain fog, distractibility, irritability or fatigue. Take a
20-minute break when you begin to feel your energy or mood fading, suggests
Rossi, and your body will automatically use the downtime to clear away metabolic
wastes and replenish energetic stores, allowing you to quickly reclaim peak
energy and effectiveness levels. You can return to your work refreshed and enjoy
another 90- to 120-minute period of mental quickness and clarity. Keep taking
breaks every hour and a half or so, and you’ll continue to enjoy these peak
cycles of creativity, energy and insight. Keep slogging along in your
depleted state, however, and you’re likely to become increasingly ineffective,
frustrated and stressed out. Ignore your ultradian rhythms long enough, and
you’ll be well on your way to what Rossi calls “Ultradian Stress Syndrome,”
which can lower your immunity and seriously diminish your ability to accomplish
anything at all. In his book The 20-Minute Break (Tarcher, 1991), Rossi
describes the resting process as a “stress conversion” opportunity, noting that,
far from being just a feel-good indulgence, it’s the most important thing you
can do to make optimal use of the energy and attention you’re putting in
throughout the day. Resist nature’s calls to take breaks, he warns, and you’ll
be missing out on the best return-on-investment opportunities your body and mind
have to offer. You’ll also be setting yourself up for greater disease and
depression risks. Professional effectiveness expert James Loehr, PhD,
coauthor of The Power of Full Engagement (Free Press, 2003), agrees. “The shifts
of energy we experience are tied to the ultradian rhythms that regulate
physiological markers of alertness at 90- to 120-minute intervals,” he writes.
“Unfortunately, many of us override these naturally occurring rhythms to the
point that they no longer even penetrate conscious awareness. The demands of our
everyday lives are so intense and so consuming that they distract our attention
from the subtler internal signals telling us that we need recovery.” Loehr,
like Rossi and the brain researchers studying the default network, strongly
advocates for naps, healthy snacks, exercise breaks, mind-shifts, social time
and rejuvenating amusements throughout the day, all of which can help us make
the best of our bodies’ and brains’ natural patterns and fluctuations. “The
number of hours in a day is fixed,” he points out, “but the quantity and quality
of energy available to us is not. This fundamental insight has the power to
revolutionize the way you live.”
Time-Out Tips
Now that you know how important idleness, relaxation and moments of enjoyment
are to your personal effectiveness, here are some proven ways to build more
of all of the above into your life. Cut Yourself Some Slack
Rather than always trying to pack more into your
days, start projects early and generously enough that you can afford to schedule
ample downtime between focused work sessions. If you are given to
procrastination, try scheduling some mini “get-started” sessions that last only
30 minutes or so, rather than repeatedly telling yourself you’ll start later and
then attempt to finish a big job in one marathon session. Studies suggest that
after 90 minutes of focused effort, your ability to think clearly diminishes,
and you become far more likely to become distracted or make mistakes. Shift Gears, Don’t Grind Them
When you notice your attention drifting or
your energy waning, instead of seeing it as a problem and fighting it,
consider it an opportunity and invitation to capture some high-value
restorative and brain-ordering synaptic activity. By putting your work down for
15 to 20 minutes — whether you choose to stare out the window, play ping pong,
sort vacation photos or engage in some water-cooler joshing around — you’ll be
giving your body and brain a chance to complete essential behind-the-scenes
activities that prepare you to return to work with more capacity, creativity and
gusto. Even switching work tasks (from writing a report to doing your filing
or making some phone calls, for example), may provide enough mental relief to
let you return to your more challenging task somewhat refreshed. Seize the Moment
There’s some real wisdom in the age-old advice to “stop
and smell the roses.” Pleasure triggers a “go” signal in the body, activating
reward centers in our brains and releasing feel-good chemicals into our
bloodstream that can make us more energized and effective (for more on that, see
“A Real Pleasure” in the December 2008 archives). The
trick is to notice pleasure, enjoyment and fun as it’s happening. Hear your
favorite song on the radio? Turn it up and dance. Hear a group of coworkers
laughing in the hallway? Go join them. Tuning in to and actively basking in
enjoyment that just happens — even if it means taking a break from some more
“productive” task — is the best way to experience it more profoundly, and more
often. Savoring such small infusions of pleasure helps bolster creativity and
productivity, suggests social psychologist Sonya Lyubomirsky, PhD. So make a
point of actively seeking out and experiencing some moments of pleasure every
day. Reach Out
Performing random acts of kindness is a great way to shift your
energy, experience a surge of pleasure — and harvest
the biochemical
benefits. Studies done at the University of Michigan provide evidence for a
phenomenon known as the “helpers high,” in which your body releases a variety of
feel-good endorphins into your bloodstream and brain, bringing on mild euphoria,
relieving stress and pain, boosting immunity, and possibly even helping to lower
blood pressure. So hold doors open for people, allow merging traffic to
merge, offer to help someone with a heavy box — even if it slows you down a
little. Just taking the time to pay someone an authentic compliment or express
appreciation can give you a day-boosting surge of enjoyment and energy. Get High on Exercise
Building bouts of activity into your day is a great
way to keep your energy high. Even moderate exercise has been linked to
production of the neurotransmitters involved in an upbeat mood and emotional
balance: dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. “As we exercise, brain cells
are pushed to release more neurotransmitters — so they act like Prozac and
Ritalin at just the right dose,” explains Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey, MD,
author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
(Little, Brown and Company, 2008). The latest documented benefit of exercise
is what Ratey calls the marijuana factor. “Physical exertion stimulates endocannabinoids, our body’s own internal marijuana,” he says. “One of the areas
marijuana attaches to is the reward and pleasure centers — and our natural
version is released whenever we stretch and strain.” With the ability to cross
the blood-brain barrier, these natural pleasure molecules are released into the
brain itself. New studies, says Ratey, also show that exercise stimulates
brain-derived neurotropic factor, or BDNF, a synapse-building protein that he
describes as being “like Miracle-Gro for the brain.” So consider taking
regular breaks during your workday to walk briskly outside, run a few flights of
stairs, or do a set or two of pushups in your office. (For a full-body workout
you can do in 30 minutes or less, see “The Squeeze-It-In Strength Workout” in
the March 2009 archives.) Or schedule a massage, a
facial or bodywork during your midafternoon slump. Your body will repay you with
high-value energy that might otherwise have been frittered away.
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Give Yourself a Break
Smart, super-practical reasons to build more idleness, downtime and moments of
enjoyment into your busy life.
By Experience Life Staff | Features,
July-August 2009 |
Making Space for Monkey Business
In Praise of Idleness
The Eureka Factor
Respect Your Ultradian Rhythms
Time-Out Tips
At Google, goofing off is the way to go. In fact, it’s encouraged. Engineers
at the Mountain View, Calif., tech powerhouse are told to spend 20 percent of
their work hours — whether a couple of hours a day, or a full day a week — doing
exactly what they please. They can sit and stare into space, take a nap, or
wander the corporate campus and let their minds roam free. At first glance,
this looks like a clever (though potentially costly) ploy to retain finicky
employees. But Google’s 80/20 concept taps some of the latest research on
employee productivity. Wide-ranging studies show that taking time out at work or
at home to rest, daydream, be silly, and pursue amusements of various kinds
has physiological and psychological benefits that can bolster well-being,
improve concentration, boost problem-solving capability and enhance
creativity. Google’s pro-downtime approach has given rise to some
amazing innovations. GMail, Google News and Google Ocean (which allows you to
virtually explore the seas) are just three successful products employees have
created during their “free” time. A fourth, Mars in Google Earth (an add-on map
of Mars’s terrain in Google Earth 5.0), launched in February. Its creator,
software engineer Michael Weiss-Malik, says the time his employer allows him to
just have fun with ideas is crucial to the creative process. “I got to
stretch my wings and do something out of the ordinary that also happens to
benefit the public’s understanding of science,” says Weiss-Malik. “And because
these are ‘side projects’ that don’t always benefit initially from full-support
resources, you’re forced to get creative and scrappy, which means you sometimes
come up with solutions you wouldn’t have thought of before, but that in
hindsight wind up being superior to what you probably would have done had it
been a ‘real’ project.” Of course, most of us don’t work for companies
quite as forward thinking as Google. But it’s not just corporate policy that
prevents us from taking breaks and goofing off more often. It’s our own mistaken
notions about the best ways to wring the most from our busy days, and our addled
brains. For the most part, we think of off-task idleness and play as
indulgences or distractions from what we “should” be doing. But these apparently
low-productivity pursuits can have some surprisingly pragmatic benefits, helping
us become more effective thinkers, more productive workers, and healthier,
happier, more resilient individuals. All of which means that pursuing random
moments of “unproductive” time might be a lot more productive than you
think.
Making Space for Monkey Business (Back to Top)
Even for those of us who
really enjoy what we do for a living, our jobs are first and foremost about
getting work done — and done well. That’s why we often relegate what we see as
less productive pursuits (say, staring out the window, sharing laughs with a
coworker or showing around pictures of our kids in their Halloween costumes) to
the back burner. Even at home, it seems we’re forever on a mission — to keep up
with the laundry, the kids’ extracurricular activities, the bills. It can keep a
person running 24/7, making it feel nearly impossible to “steal time” for purely
enjoyable or relaxing engagements. “Lots of individuals have that sense of
eternal responsibility — they feel bound to the demands of work and the pressure
to pay for their mortgage, their car, their kids in college,” says Stuart Brown,
MD, a retired psychiatrist in Carmel Valley, Calif., and coauthor of Play: How
It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul (Penguin,
2009). “The American way, starting with the dualism of good and bad in
Judeo-Christian tradition, the survival demands of a frontier society, the
grinding workload fostered by the industrial revolution, has not always
prioritized the experience of playfulness. And that’s a huge loss.” In part,
it’s a loss precisely because of the key ways in which downtime and
self-renewing enjoyments can help us upgrade our overall levels of happiness
while simultaneously boosting our creativity and mental clarity (for more on
this, read on and also see “Ha Ha!, Aha!, and Ahh!” in this issue). And, in part,
it’s a loss because when emphasis on productivity is unmitigated and
unrelenting, we experience diminishing returns that truly diminish us:
Accumulated stress spills over into all areas of our lives, lowering our overall
happiness, robbing us of pleasure, and adversely affecting both our health and
personal effectiveness. It’s for this reason that personal effectiveness
expert Stephen Covey, author of the now-classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People (Free Press, 1989), dedicated the seventh of his famed Seven Habits to
“sharpening the saw,” insisting that only a consistent, continuous dedication to
self-renewal (rest, play, exercise, personal exploration) can empower one to
maintain the sharp mental and physical edge necessary to properly execute the
other six habits. “Without this renewal,” writes Covey on his Web site, “the
body becomes weak, the mind mechanical, the emotions raw, the spirit
insensitive, and the person selfish.” You can renew and better yourself through
appropriate rest and relaxation, notes Covey, “or you can totally burn yourself
out by overdoing everything.” So how does one begin to build more
self-renewing breaks and amusements into everyday life? And what benefits
can one expect if one does invest a little more energy in simply powering down,
chilling out, and even goofing around now and then? The answers are nestled
right between your ears.
In Praise of Idleness (Back to Top)
Most of us have been led to believe that the
off-task brain is a little like an idling engine — puttering along at rest until
given a specific task to accomplish or a problem to focus on. But new research
involving the use of PET and MRI imaging technologies suggests that in reality
our brains maintain an almost constant level of activity, even when we appear to
be doing nothing. In fact, according to Marcus Raichle, PhD, a
neuroscientist at Washington University in St. Louis, a number of
interconnecting brain regions kick into a sort of neurological and metabolic
hyperdrive whenever given a break from tasks that require more directed, highly
focused attention. You can see it on a PET scan: The same areas of brain that
light up when subjects allow their minds to wander from a problem or focused
task promptly dim whenever they are asked to actively concentrate on something.
And when those mind-wandering areas are active, they gobble glucose at an
astonishing rate. Based on the fact that the brain diverts attention from its
demanding “downtime” activities only when called upon to divert blood, oxygen
and glucose for more urgent purposes, Raichle and other brain researchers are
coming to the conclusion that whatever the brain is doing while apparently doing
nothing may actually be profoundly important. In a 2001 paper published in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Raichle and his colleague
Gordon Shulman, PhD, identified the cluster of regions in which this activity
occurred, including the medial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and posterior
cingulate, which represent an arch through the midline of the brain. They dubbed
these areas the “default network” and have continued to focus research efforts
on precisely how the network operates — and for what purpose — ever
since. What’s clear so far is that the default network utilizes strong
connections with the parts of our brains that process executive
(decision-making) functions, memories and content we deem to be of emotional
significance or significant to our self-interest. And when active, parts of the
network devour 30 percent more caloric energy (in the form of glucose) than
nearly any other parts of the brain, suggesting that when it’s working, it’s
working hard. Precisely what it’s working on is the subject of ongoing
research, but Raichle and many of his fellow researchers now hypothesize that
the default network is responsible for processing the memories, observations and
other random unsorted bits of material we’ve got floating around in our
knowledge banks at any given time, potentially for the purposes of linking them
or assessing their potential significance to our present and future
circumstances and decisions. It may be that the default network is burning
though glucose, in part, to create the amino acids and neurotransmitters it
requires to build and maintain new synaptic circuits. The act of daydreaming,
in particular, seems to send the default network into action, and researchers
now suspect this much maligned activity may be one of the prime tools the brain
employs in sorting and making sense of the chaotic bits and bytes we take in on
a daily basis. In other words, giving your conscious mind a break now and then —
not keeping it constantly focused on important matters — may be among the best
ways to invite insights, ideas and solutions.
The Eureka Factor (Back to Top)
You’ve
probably heard plenty of people acknowledge that they get their best ideas in
the shower. And you’ve no doubt heard the story of Archimedes, who shouted his
now-legendary “Eureka!” when he stepped into the bath, saw his bathwater rise
and suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the
volume of the part of his body he’d submerged, abruptly intuiting the answer
to what had previously been an intractable mathematical problem. There’s a
reason so much genius has occurred in bathrooms, according to cognitive
neuroscientist Mark Jung-Beeman, PhD, and it’s the same reason we often get
great ideas while puttering in the garden, getting a facial, taking a walk or
just waking up from a nap: Because these are precisely the types of
circumstances in which we’re not trying to come up with genius ideas, or really
any ideas at all. Our body is relatively relaxed, our brain is being allowed to
do whatever it likes, its circuits freed up for whatever associations and
information-shuttling activities it deems worthwhile. And it’s those random
associations that seem key both to large-scale breakthroughs and handy “aha!”
moments. Jung-Beeman, a researcher at Northwestern University in Evanston,
Ill., has made a career of mapping the brain circuits involved in moments of
spontaneous insight. And he has found that while the brain lays much of the
groundwork for insight by expending focused attention on a particular problem,
certain parts of the brain must actually relax and be allowed to wander a bit
for the necessary connections and associations (most of which are churned up by
the more loosely organized right hemisphere) to be made. In studies of
subjects attempting to solve complex puzzles, psychologist Joy Bhattacharya,
PhD, a researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London, has been able to use
electroencephalography (EEG) to successfully predict moments of insight up to
eight seconds before the insights occur. He’s found that one key predictive
indicator of an upcoming “aha!” is the presence of alpha waves (a brainwave
pattern associated with relaxation) emanating from the right hemisphere of the
brain. Such activity makes the mind more receptive to new and unusual ideas,
Bhattacharya suggests. This explains, perhaps, why big-idea guys like Albert
Einstein and mathematician Henri Poincaré have credited their best insights to
the unconscious work their minds did while they were taking a break from what
they ostensibly did best. The upshot? Beyond a certain point, sitting for
hours at your desk and working harder and longer to solve that problem or
come up with that big idea may actually work against you. And that “certain
point” may be mere minutes from now.
Respect Your Ultradian Rhythms (Back to Top)
Just as your body keeps pace with circadian
rhythms (patterns related to 24-hour, night-and-day cycles), it also
responds to ultradian rhythms — patterns that occur many times throughout the
day. One of the most important of those rhythms regulates natural fluctuations
of activity and rest, and exertion and recovery. According to psychobiology
researcher Ernest Rossi, PhD, a leading expert on ultradian rhythms and how they
affect human biology, people are programmed to want to take a 20-minute break
after every 90 minutes of intense focus or activity. And it’s not just that we
want a break, says Rossi, we actually need one if we hope to operate at peak
effectiveness and efficiency. This is true right down to the cellular level.
During an active phase, a cell extracts energy from adenosine triphosphate, or
ATP, changing it to adenosine diphosphate, or ADP. During rest, the cell uses
oxygen and blood glucose to change the ADP back to ATP — the stuff our bodies
use for energy. During periods of focused mental or physical activity,
explains Rossi, the body gradually runs through its available stores of a
variety of the energetic and chemical compounds that allow us to think
clearly and begins accumulating stress-related chemicals and byproducts that
begin to interfere with our physical coordination and thought processes.
Typically, this buildup occurs over the course of 90 to 120 minutes, and may
manifest as brain fog, distractibility, irritability or fatigue. Take a
20-minute break when you begin to feel your energy or mood fading, suggests
Rossi, and your body will automatically use the downtime to clear away metabolic
wastes and replenish energetic stores, allowing you to quickly reclaim peak
energy and effectiveness levels. You can return to your work refreshed and enjoy
another 90- to 120-minute period of mental quickness and clarity. Keep taking
breaks every hour and a half or so, and you’ll continue to enjoy these peak
cycles of creativity, energy and insight. Keep slogging along in your
depleted state, however, and you’re likely to become increasingly ineffective,
frustrated and stressed out. Ignore your ultradian rhythms long enough, and
you’ll be well on your way to what Rossi calls “Ultradian Stress Syndrome,”
which can lower your immunity and seriously diminish your ability to accomplish
anything at all. In his book The 20-Minute Break (Tarcher, 1991), Rossi
describes the resting process as a “stress conversion” opportunity, noting that,
far from being just a feel-good indulgence, it’s the most important thing you
can do to make optimal use of the energy and attention you’re putting in
throughout the day. Resist nature’s calls to take breaks, he warns, and you’ll
be missing out on the best return-on-investment opportunities your body and mind
have to offer. You’ll also be setting yourself up for greater disease and
depression risks. Professional effectiveness expert James Loehr, PhD,
coauthor of The Power of Full Engagement (Free Press, 2003), agrees. “The shifts
of energy we experience are tied to the ultradian rhythms that regulate
physiological markers of alertness at 90- to 120-minute intervals,” he writes.
“Unfortunately, many of us override these naturally occurring rhythms to the
point that they no longer even penetrate conscious awareness. The demands of our
everyday lives are so intense and so consuming that they distract our attention
from the subtler internal signals telling us that we need recovery.” Loehr,
like Rossi and the brain researchers studying the default network, strongly
advocates for naps, healthy snacks, exercise breaks, mind-shifts, social time
and rejuvenating amusements throughout the day, all of which can help us make
the best of our bodies’ and brains’ natural patterns and fluctuations. “The
number of hours in a day is fixed,” he points out, “but the quantity and quality
of energy available to us is not. This fundamental insight has the power to
revolutionize the way you live.”
Time-Out Tips (Back to Top)
Now that you know how important idleness, relaxation and moments of enjoyment
are to your personal effectiveness, here are some proven ways to build more
of all of the above into your life. Cut Yourself Some Slack
Rather than always trying to pack more into your
days, start projects early and generously enough that you can afford to schedule
ample downtime between focused work sessions. If you are given to
procrastination, try scheduling some mini “get-started” sessions that last only
30 minutes or so, rather than repeatedly telling yourself you’ll start later and
then attempt to finish a big job in one marathon session. Studies suggest that
after 90 minutes of focused effort, your ability to think clearly diminishes,
and you become far more likely to become distracted or make mistakes. Shift Gears, Don’t Grind Them
When you notice your attention drifting or
your energy waning, instead of seeing it as a problem and fighting it,
consider it an opportunity and invitation to capture some high-value
restorative and brain-ordering synaptic activity. By putting your work down for
15 to 20 minutes — whether you choose to stare out the window, play ping pong,
sort vacation photos or engage in some water-cooler joshing around — you’ll be
giving your body and brain a chance to complete essential behind-the-scenes
activities that prepare you to return to work with more capacity, creativity and
gusto. Even switching work tasks (from writing a report to doing your filing
or making some phone calls, for example), may provide enough mental relief to
let you return to your more challenging task somewhat refreshed. Seize the Moment
There’s some real wisdom in the age-old advice to “stop
and smell the roses.” Pleasure triggers a “go” signal in the body, activating
reward centers in our brains and releasing feel-good chemicals into our
bloodstream that can make us more energized and effective (for more on that, see
“A Real Pleasure” in the December 2008 archives). The
trick is to notice pleasure, enjoyment and fun as it’s happening. Hear your
favorite song on the radio? Turn it up and dance. Hear a group of coworkers
laughing in the hallway? Go join them. Tuning in to and actively basking in
enjoyment that just happens — even if it means taking a break from some more
“productive” task — is the best way to experience it more profoundly, and more
often. Savoring such small infusions of pleasure helps bolster creativity and
productivity, suggests social psychologist Sonya Lyubomirsky, PhD. So make a
point of actively seeking out and experiencing some moments of pleasure every
day. Reach Out
Performing random acts of kindness is a great way to shift your
energy, experience a surge of pleasure — and harvest
the biochemical
benefits. Studies done at the University of Michigan provide evidence for a
phenomenon known as the “helpers high,” in which your body releases a variety of
feel-good endorphins into your bloodstream and brain, bringing on mild euphoria,
relieving stress and pain, boosting immunity, and possibly even helping to lower
blood pressure. So hold doors open for people, allow merging traffic to
merge, offer to help someone with a heavy box — even if it slows you down a
little. Just taking the time to pay someone an authentic compliment or express
appreciation can give you a day-boosting surge of enjoyment and energy. Get High on Exercise
Building bouts of activity into your day is a great
way to keep your energy high. Even moderate exercise has been linked to
production of the neurotransmitters involved in an upbeat mood and emotional
balance: dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine. “As we exercise, brain cells
are pushed to release more neurotransmitters — so they act like Prozac and
Ritalin at just the right dose,” explains Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey, MD,
author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain
(Little, Brown and Company, 2008). The latest documented benefit of exercise
is what Ratey calls the marijuana factor. “Physical exertion stimulates endocannabinoids, our body’s own internal marijuana,” he says. “One of the areas
marijuana attaches to is the reward and pleasure centers — and our natural
version is released whenever we stretch and strain.” With the ability to cross
the blood-brain barrier, these natural pleasure molecules are released into the
brain itself. New studies, says Ratey, also show that exercise stimulates
brain-derived neurotropic factor, or BDNF, a synapse-building protein that he
describes as being “like Miracle-Gro for the brain.” So consider taking
regular breaks during your workday to walk briskly outside, run a few flights of
stairs, or do a set or two of pushups in your office. (For a full-body workout
you can do in 30 minutes or less, see “The Squeeze-It-In Strength Workout” in
the March 2009 archives.) Or schedule a massage, a
facial or bodywork during your midafternoon slump. Your body will repay you with
high-value energy that might otherwise have been frittered away.
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June 29, 2009
Christine Hohlbaum says:
I love this article - a great reminder of how important taking time-outs truly is. Having researched this phenomenon myself, I am impressed with the depth of this piece. Thanks much! Christine Louise Hohlbaum author of 'The Power of Slow: 101 Ways to Save Time in Our 24/7 World' http://PowerofSlow.org