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Research has shown the many benefits of resting, even briefly, for brain health.
One small study published in the journal Cognition found that those who took short breaks had better focus on a task when compared with those who didn’t take a break. Sustained stimulation, the study authors suggested, can cause our brains to become habituated to an activity, eventually leading us to process it as unimportant.
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A 2022 meta-analysis published in the journal PLOS One looked at how “micro-breaks” can affect well-being. The review found that breaks as short as 10 minutes can boost vigor and reduce fatigue.
Periods of rest can be especially beneficial on long work days. In 2021, when many people were working remotely all the time, Microsoft conducted a study that followed two groups of people in the US: the first had back-to-back Zoom meetings, and the other group took 10-minute meditation breaks between meetings. Microsoft monitored brain activity of 14 participants in the study using an electroencephalogram (EEG).
In the first group, “what you see is a brain that’s filled with cortisol and adrenaline,” says Celeste Headlee, a journalist and author of Do Nothing: How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving. “It’s tired, it’s stressed, it’s probably more irritable, and it’s probably less compassionate.” The other group? “You can see in brilliant colour what a difference [the breaks] make,” she says. “Those are brains that are relaxed.”
According to experts, lying on the ground can be the ultimate form of deep rest.Credit: Getty Images
The smartphone trap
There’s a stark difference between downtime and boredom: the former is a necessary activity that revitalises us, while the latter is an unpleasant state in which we want to be doing something else, says Andreas Elpidorou, a University of Louisville philosophy professor who studies boredom.
“Boredom is what we experience when our task or situation doesn’t properly cognitively engage us – it doesn’t sufficiently interest us, stimulate us, capture our attention or afford us with meaning,” he says.
It’s tempting to reach for our phones when we’re bored because they are an easy way to avoid this uncomfortable feeling.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with this (we all do it), it is not a great solution to boredom because it is a passive activity, says James Danckert, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and co-author of Out of My Skull: The Psychology of Boredom.
New research has begun showing the negative effects our mobile phones can have on our health. Smartphone addiction (which Danckert says afflicts four to eight per cent of people) is becoming increasingly common worldwide. It has been linked to physical health problems, such as digital eyestrain and cervical disc degeneration, as well as anxiety and depression. Some recent research also suggests it can affect the structure of our brains: two studies found smartphone addiction was correlated with lower white matter integrity and lower gray matter volume in the brain.
Weaving downtime into your life
Give your mind and body a reset with these three tips.
- Focus on nothing. Downtime should leave you feeling rested, regenerated and recharged, Childs says. It can be as simple as relaxing by a fire or sitting outside and letting your mind wander.
- Work your way up. Sitting still for 30 minutes a day is great, but it’s not achievable for everyone. Start small: the next time you’re waiting for a takeaway order or a ride home, don’t do anything. Instead, simply exist.
- When in doubt, lie down. Epel’s research has looked at the benefits of deep rest, a restorative state that can improve our physical and psychological well-being. You can achieve deep rest through yoga and mindfulness meditation, but Epel says the ultimate method is simply lying down on the floor.
Not a modern problem
But our inability to take a break is hardly a new problem.
In the popular 1994 book Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn said we filled all of our waking hours with busy-ness, doing and self-distraction. “Life affords us scant time for being nowadays, unless we seize the opportunity on purpose,” he wrote.
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In Henry David Thoreau’s 1854 classic Walden – drawn from the two-plus years he lived in a cabin in Massachusetts – he wrote, “It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: ‘What are we busy about?’”
Most Americans think of downtime as something that is extra or indulgent – a treat that has to be earned only after we’ve done all of our productive tasks, says Amber Childs, a psychologist and associate professor at Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry. But research would suggest the opposite: downtime is a basic human need.
“There’s not a place where it’s built in to say this is a normative, expected, appreciated part of what it means to be alive, what it means to be well, what it means to be whole and what it means to be thriving,” she says.
The Washington Post
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