Time off is what your brain thrives on. It spends hours every day working and managing the constant streams of information and conversation that come at you from all directions. But if your brain doesn’t get a chance to chill and restore itself, your mood, performance, and health suffer.
Think of this recovery as mental downtime—periods when you’re not actively focusing on and engaged in the outside world. You simply let your mind wander or daydream and it becomes reenergized in the process.
We are consistently overscheduling, overworking, and overdoing. We treat ourselves like machines and allow no downtime for our mental health, consistently in overdrive.
That kind of attitude can rebound on you, though. Consider the zombie-like feeling you have after a marathon meeting at work, a crazy-busy day running errands and doing chores, or a weekend filled with too many social gatherings and obligations. You can barely think straight, you end up accomplishing less than you had planned, and you become forgetful and make mistakes.
“Research shows that after you take a mental time-out, you are better at creative thinking and coming up with solutions and new ideas, and you feel more content.”
Your brain is actually designed to have regular rest periods. Overall, it has two main modes of processing. One is action-oriented and lets you concentrate on tasks, solve problems, and process incoming data—this is what you use when you’re working, watching TV, scrolling through Instagram, or otherwise managing and making sense of information.
The second is called the default mode network (DMN), and it switches on whenever your mind takes a break to wander inward. If you’ve ever read a few pages of a book and then realized you haven’t absorbed anything because you were thinking about something totally unrelated, like the best place to go for tacos or what to wear tomorrow, that was your DMN taking over.
The DMN can switch on and off in the blink of an eye research shows. But you can also be in it for hours, during, say, a quiet walk in the woods. Either way, spending time in your DMN every day is critical: “It creates rejuvenation in the brain, when you can chew on or consolidate information and make meaning out of what’s going on in your life,” says Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Ed.D., an associate professor of education, psychology, and neuroscience at the University of Southern California’s Brain and Creativity Institute. “It helps you make sense of who you are what actions to do next, and what things mean, and it’s linked to well-being, intelligence, and creativity.”
The DMN gives your mind a chance to reflect and sort things out. It helps you expand on and solidify lessons you’ve learned, think about and plan for the future, and work out problems. Anytime you get stuck on something and give up on it only to be struck with an aha moment later on, you may have your DMN to thank, says Jonathan Schooler, Ph.D., a professor of psychological and brain sciences and the director of the Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In a study on writers and physicists, Schooler and his team found that 30 percent of the group’s creative ideas originated while they were thinking about or doing something unrelated to their jobs.
In addition, the DMN also plays a key role in forming memories. In fact, your brain may be busier forming memories in the quiet time right before you fall asleep (a prime DMN period) than when you’re actually sleeping, a study from the University of Bonn in Germany suggests.
It’s important to give your brain a break numerous times throughout the day, experts say. While there’s no hard-and-fast prescription, Friedman suggests aiming for a rest period about every 90 minutes or whenever you start to feel drained, are unable to concentrate, or are stuck on a problem.
No matter how busy you get, don’t sacrifice activities that really revitalize you, like a quiet bike ride in the morning, a lunch break away from your desk, or a relaxing evening at home. And don’t skip vacations or days off. “The key is to stop thinking that downtime is a luxury that’s taking away from your productivity,” Immordino-Yang says. In fact, just the opposite is true.
“When you invest in downtime to consolidate information and construct meaning out of your life, you charge back into your day-to-day rejuvenated and more strategic about what you want to accomplish.”
Cosmo Insurance Agency is an independent insurance agency serving surrounding communities in New Jersey. Cosmo keeps its promise to assure an efficient and creative approach to the services we offer. Each of our clients experience a personalized and long-term relationship with us. Our New Jersey based team of health brokers guides our clients in helping them choose the most cost-effective options. By incorporating the latest in technology-based tools and laws on healthcare, employee benefits, life insurance and finance, we keep our clients up-to-date with the plans that encompass all of their needs, whether it is individual or group insurance.
CONTACT COSMO NOW
GET A HEALTH INSURANCE QUOTE NOW
LEARN MORE ABOUT HEALTH INSURANCE
GET A DENTAL INSURANCE QUOTE
