When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing(20)
Push-ups—Yeah, push-ups. Do two a day for a week. Then four a day for the next week and six a day a week after that. You’ll boost your heart rate, shake off cognitive cobwebs, and maybe get a little stronger.
3. Nature break—This might sound tree hugger-y, but study after study has shown the replenishing effects of nature. What’s more, people consistently underestimate how much better nature makes them feel. Choose: Walk outside—If you’ve got a few minutes and are near a local park, take a lap through it. If you work at home and have a dog, take Fido for a walk.
Go outside—If there are trees and a bench behind your building, sit there instead of inside.
Pretend you’re outside—If the best you can do is look at some indoor plants or the trees outside your window—well, research suggests that will help, too.
4. Social break—Don’t go it alone. At least not always. Social breaks are effective, especially when you decide the who and how. A few ideas: Reach out and touch somebody—Call someone you haven’t talked to for a while and just catch up for five or ten minutes. Reawakening these “dormant ties” is also a great way to strengthen your network.3 Or use the moment to say thank you—via a note, an e-mail, or a quick visit—to someone who’s helped you. Gratitude—with its mighty combination of meaning and social connection—is a mighty restorative.4
Schedule it—Plan a regular walk or visit to a coffee joint or weekly gossip session with colleagues you like. A fringe benefit of social breaks is that you’re more likely to take one if someone else is counting on you. Or go Swedish and try what Swedes call a fika—a full-fledged coffee break that is the supposed key to Sweden’s high levels of employee satisfaction and productivity.5
Don’t schedule it—If your schedule is too tight for something regular, buy someone a coffee one day this week. Bring it to her. Sit and talk about something other than work for five minutes.
5. Mental gear-shifting break—Our brains suffer fatigue just as much as our bodies do—and that’s a big factor in the trough. Give your brain a break by trying these: Meditate—Meditation is one of the most effective breaks—and micro-breaks—of all.6 Check out material from UCLA (http://marc.ucla.edu/mindful-meditations), which offers guided meditations as short as three minutes.
Controlled breathing—Have forty-five seconds? Then, as the New York Times explains: “Take a deep breath, expanding your belly. Pause. Exhale slowly to the count of five. Repeat four times.”7 It’s called controlled breathing, and it can tamp your stress hormones, sharpen your thinking, and maybe even boost your immune system—all in under a minute.
Lighten up—Listen to a comedy podcast. Read a joke book. If you can find a little privacy, put on your headphones and jam out for a song or two. There’s even evidence from one study on the replenishing effects of watching dog videos.8 (No, really.)
CREATE YOUR OWN TIME-OUT AND TROUGH CHECKLIST
Sometimes it’s not possible to pull completely away from an important task or project to take a restorative break. When you and your team need to plow forward and get a job done even if you’re in the trough, that’s when it’s time for a vigilance break that combines a time-out with a checklist.
Here’s how to plan it:
If you have a task or project that will need your continued vigilance and focus even through the trough, find a stage in the middle of that task to schedule a time-out. Plan for that time-out by creating a trough checklist modeled on the lime-green cards used at the University of Michigan Medical Center.
For example, suppose your team needs to get a major proposal out the door by 5 p.m. today. No one can afford to step outside and take a walk. Instead, schedule a time-out two hours before the deadline for everyone to gather. Your checklist might read:
1. Everyone stops what they are doing, takes a step backward, and draws a deep breath.
2. Each team member takes thirty seconds to report on their progress.
3. Each team member takes thirty seconds to describe their next step.
4. Each team member answers this question: What are we missing?
5. Assign who will address the missing pieces.
6. Schedule another time-out, if necessary.
PAUSE LIKE A PRO
Anders Ericsson is “the world expert on world experts.”9 A psychologist who studies extraordinary performers, Ericsson found that elite performers have something in common: They’re really good at taking breaks.
Most expert musicians and athletes begin practicing in earnest around nine o’clock in the morning, hit their peak during the late morning, break in the afternoon, and then practice for a few more hours in the evening. For example, the practice pattern of the most accomplished violinists looks like this:
Recognize that shape?
In Ericsson’s study, one factor that distinguished the best from the rest is that they took complete breaks during the afternoon (many even napped as part of their routine), whereas nonexperts were less rigorous about pauses. We might think that superstars power straight through the day for hours on end. In fact, they practice with intense focus for forty-five- to ninety-minute bursts, then take meaningful restorative breaks.
You can do the same. Pause like a pro and you might become one.
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