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Synopsis

We know taking breaks optimizes work-and-create flow. But what are the best practices? And does your creativity benefit from a full nap or not?

An optimal work-and-create flow is an extended period of time in which your mind and body are performing at their best when engaged in high-thinking and high-imagining tasks and projects. You sustain focus, your body’s fire stays stoked, your attitude flourishes, your imagination hangs from the monkey bars.

THE YOUTHFUL BRAIN IS FASTER BUT… not necessarily better (and working 16-hour days is not necessarily more productive). […]

If you’re middle-aged and blush because you seem to work more slowly, take heart. You’re likely working at far more effective, complex levels than your younger co-workers. It’s not only okay to take breaks during your work flow.

BREAK WITH RHYTHM. Our bodies and minds have natural rhythms of optimal performance. For most of us, those rhythms are in 90-minute to 2-hour increments. Our natural rapid-eye-movement dream cycles, for instance, typically flow in 90-minute waves. […]

I recommend to clients they remove themselves from the work environment if possible. For a corporate client, I recommended he schedule a walk to another part of his vast office quarters, glance out a floor-to-ceiling window, and then return to his office room, sit in a comfortable sofa normally reserved for clients, and remember the last time he was outdoors working on his ranch—one of his favorite activities.

DISTRACTION CAN RE-BOOT LONG-TERM FOCUS

[A] deliberate distraction or introduction of a second task actually can increase vigilant attention on the first task. […]

Pay attention to when you need to introduce a quick second task. Maybe sending off an email or text message will free up mental bandwidth and get you re-committed to the high-thinking task. Do this in tandem with the “Break with Rhythm” suggestions above.

THE FULL MONTE NAP: In some work environments, taking a 20-minute break still might be risky. Taking a real nap might be tantamount to losing a job. And many psychologists recommend not taking a full nap because doing so will make you feel groggy. […]

When you can take an extended creative or working retreat such as an 48-hour in-house retreat, include an afternoon 90-minute nap. Then move from lounge to desk. Your unconscious very well might untangle some of your conscious problems.

ENJOY YOUR EVENINGS.

[P]eople who disengage from thinking about their work during the evening are routinely happier and more refreshed the next day. […]

Schedule non-digital time in the evenings, especially 45 minutes before sleep. Set up a bi-weekly schedule of evening rhythms: One Monday as “reading night,” One Tuesday as “date night,” et cetera. If you must work some evenings, schedule work evenings. Make them the exception instead of the rule.

Remember, make space for pockets of wonder, pockets of silence, and pockets of play. There’s only one day like today. Make the day a piece of art worth remembering.

In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight.

The urgency of slowing down — to find the time and space to think — is nothing new, of course, and wiser souls have always reminded us that the more attention we pay to the moment, the less time and energy we have to place it in some larger context. “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries,” the French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th century, “and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.” He also famously remarked that all of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say. Partly because we’re so busy communicating. And — as he might also have said — we’re rushing to meet so many deadlines that we hardly register that what we need most are lifelines.

So what to do? The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual. All the data in the world cannot teach us how to sift through data; images don’t show us how to process images. The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen.

It’s vital, of course, to stay in touch with the world, and to know what’s going on; […] But it’s only by having some distance from the world that you can see it whole, and understand what you should be doing with it.

1. Introverts Are Shy and Anti-Social

This is completely false. Introverts do not suffer from low self-esteem nor do they have an aversion to people. Introverts just have different social needs compared to extroverts.

While extroverts gain energy from social interaction, we are drained by it. […]

2. Introverts Are Boring

Since introverts are easily over-stimulated in busy settings, we are frequently thought of as boring. Again, not true. We just prefer smaller, more intimate groups instead of big, loud gatherings.

[…]

3. Introverts Are Rude

This is one of the most common misconceptions introverts battle. We are not very good at “polite” small talk. We just don’t see its value. Therefore, we often skip it.

Also, we prefer to stay quiet and soak in new settings. Some interpret this behavior as being rude. It isn’t intended that way at all. We are just more inwardly focused. […]

4. Introverts Always Want to Be Alone

This could not be more untrue! Introverts love having deep, meaningful relationships. We certainly value our “alone time”, but we also look forward to coming back together.

Introverts typically have a small group of extremely close friends. Our loyalty and faithfulness go unmatched. We deeply value our relationships. We just don’t feel the need to be “friends” with everyone.

5. Introverts Are Weird

Since our social needs differ greatly from extroverts, we are often seen as weird. We have been endlessly portrayed as geeks, nerds and social idiots. Actually, we are very bright, thoughtful and insightful people. We just value different things.

[…]

Why do people have such a hard time computing probabilities?

Well you know, there is a cognitive difficulty in thinking about probability in that you have to maintain several possibilities in the mind at once. And this is really something that turns out to be quite difficult. Normally we have a story and its a single story – a single story with a theme. Thinking probabilistically in a proper way is extremely difficult for people. People do have a sense of propensity. That is, that a system has a tendency to do something or other, but that is different than thinking about probability where you do have to think of two possibilities and weigh their relative chances of happening.

The Danish study I cited in my earlier piece, which shows that kids concentrate better after biking or walking to school, is far from the only research showing positive cognitive benefits from cycling, and not just for school-age kids. And yet these connections are only beginning to be adequately explored.

A recent article in _Bicycling _magazine, “Riding Is My Ritalin,” looked at the effects of cycling on ADHD in children and adults, telling the story of one young man who has been using an intense road cycling regimen to treat his own attention disorder. As the article points out, researchers were looking at the link between physical activity and attention deficit as long ago as the 1970s.

People who ride bicycles are almost ridiculously eager – and I include myself in this company – to tell you about how getting on the bike and riding for transportation or for pleasure elevates their mood and helps calm anxiety. It’s one of the reasons that people become so passionately attached to their bicycles. Yet scientists still don’t fully understand why this might be so.

These experiments on bicycling and brain function, along with other studies about the connection between exercise, mood, and concentration, are clearly in their early stages. But they raise profound questions about the way our preferred mode of transportation affects our cognition and mood.

What effect has our dependence on the automobile had on our collective mental health? What role does passive transportation play in mood and attention disorders, especially for children? What therapeutic effects could a shift to more active transportation modes have for people who suffer from these disorders? What are the social costs of an environment that enforces auto dependence? Does cycling have special benefits that other exercise modes don’t?

These are important questions. We should be trying much harder to answer them. 

We invest food with so much meaning, and rightly so: it changes our mood, it strengthens our relationships when we eat together and food choices express who we are.

But food has a dark side. We worry about eating unhealthy, about weight gain and how we can control our intake. Eating is not just pleasure; it is also about the struggle with ourselves.

In the last few decades we’ve learnt an enormous amount about the psychology of food.

Too many points to try to summarise, so here are all 20 insights simply listed:

1. America’s [and almost everyone else’s?] terrible relationship with food

2. You don’t know when you’re really full

3. Fat = bad?

4. It’s never ‘just lunch’

5. Taste fades with age

6. Carrots taste weird for breakfast

7. Fat waitress = fat customer

8. Fat friends = fat self

9. Eating intentions are beaten by habits

10. Mindless eating

11. Suppressing food thoughts leads to bingeing

12. If it’s healthy, you can eat more! [unfortunately not true]

13. Anyone for smoked salmon ice-cream?

14. Label it full-fat and it tastes better

15. Bad moods make you eat bad stuff

16. Healthy foods improve your mood

17. I won’t have what she’s having

18. Small changes beat weird crash diets

19. The Pepsi challenge

20. I’m eating an idea and it’s a tasty one!