Why take a break?

  • Growth = stress + rest. Too much stress and too little rest can lead to burnout. With not enough stress and too much rest, people become complacent and stagnant. Top performers manage stress and rest to grow efficiently and continuously.
  • Targeted, high-intensity workouts followed by rest and recovery. Repeat the process, but at a slightly higher intensity, and you’ll be able to boost your body’s performance.

What can rest restore?

  • The two resources that brain workers spend the most, and need the most to recover from a break, are willpower and focus, so
    1. To rest, disconnect from the Internet
    2. Short and frequent breaks are better than working long hours and then taking long breaks
    3. It’s best to leave the office during breaks

What is rest and what is not rest?

  • Useful rest: relaxation, socializing (nonsense, wechat)
  • Useless breaks: Eating, cognition (reading the news, checking email)

How to rest?

  • In the short term

    1. Take a walk outdoors. Moving your limbs increases blood flow to your brain while providing the brain with just the right distraction. Even if you don’t take a formal walk, getting up and taking a few steps every hour is a good break.
    2. Go back to nature, surrounded by flowers and trees, mountains and rivers can rest. Even looking at pictures of nature can have a noticeable effect on the brain. Changing your computer desktop to a natural landscape also helps.
    3. Get together with friends, talk and drink. It has to be a friend, for friendship, not for “connections”.
    4. Start with a cup of coffee, which should contain 200 milligrams of caffeine. Set the timer for 25 minutes; Began to sleep; Get up at the end of 25 minutes.

  • Mid –

    1. A good vacation is like a recharge. It keeps you energized for a long time. When you’re on vacation, you need to completely disconnect from work. Take a walk, go back to nature, hang out with friends, listen to music, take a shower, but don’t do anything that drains your attention, like playing video games or checking your phone in the middle of the night.

  • For a long time

    1. Learn to meditate. Find an uninterrupted time to sit comfortably in a quiet place; Take a deep breath and feel your stomach rise and fall with the breath. Consciousness just wants to breathe all the time, but it doesn’t have to avoid the thought that comes up in your head, acknowledge it, and let it go. Start with 1 minute a day and gradually increase your time.
    2. Sleep is very important, not only to eliminate fatigue, but also to allow the body and brain to “grow”. Sleep should be regular, with 7-9 hours every night is appropriate, specific length varies from person to person, with no alarm clock, natural wake up is the best.

How to lose focus?

Attention is a limited resource. When you pay attention, you deplete the brain circuits associated with attention. But how to nourish the mind? What is “not paying attention” when we are constantly thinking about something and can’t stop thinking about it? This leads to an important concept called the Default Mode network.

  1. “Positive constructive daydreaming (PCD).”
  2. Take a nap.
  3. Give yourself a pep talk by pretending you’re someone else and seeing stress as a challenge rather than a threat

This article was originally published by Silicon Valley’s IO