We continue the series of articles with the main theses of the book by Brad Stahlberg and Steve Magness “ At the peak. How to maintain maximum efficiency without burnout . " In the first part, we talked about the multifaceted nature of stress: what it looks like from the inside of our brain, what is its connection with the desired productivity, and in what therapeutic doses it should be taken. Today we are going to talk about rest - the antipode of stress, pleasant, but elusive in the modern world.
The biggest problem with recreation is that people find it difficult to comprehend and therefore underestimate its role in productive work. In today's “culture of success,” relaxation is perceived as optional at best, and at worst an outright hindrance between ambitious people and achievement. Stahlberg and Magness, as we have seen, take a different view: rest is an organic part of the work cycle, a key component of the overall growth formula:
Load (stress) + rest = growth
First, let's define the concepts. By rest, people mean a lot of things: a relaxed state, entertainment, a change of activity. The authors do not give specific definitions, but in general terms they represent rest as the absence of load / stress at all levels - physical, intellectual, even emotional. Of course, the main goal is to relieve the area in which you are working, but if you try to simply replace one type of effort with another, a full recovery may not occur.
The mechanisms of intellectual work are of the greatest interest to us, therefore, below we will talk about how rest from mental activity works.
So, in the last part of the article, we talked about the fact that people solve problems using two intelligent systems that use different types of neural connections - they are conventionally designated in the book as the first and second. Both systems are characterized by rational, linear thinking, which is based on logical connections. We are able to track the course of intellectual activity of this kind and (up to certain limits) - to manage it. It is this type of thinking that we associate with the word "think" and it is he who absorbed the attention of scientists throughout the twentieth century.
What happens when we move the keyboard aside, get up and go out to air? The answer to this question back in 1929 was received by the German psychologist Hans Berger, who observed brain activity using a new technology of his own invention - an electroencephalogram. When his subjects stopped thinking purposefully about the assigned tasks, the activity of the brain regions responsible for solving the problems faded. The overall activity of the brain, however, did not fall at all: other areas came into play, which remained in a "sleeping mode" while the participants in the experiment racked their brains.
Among others, Berger shared this observation with the scientific community, however, for almost a century, the mysterious, not directed expenditure of our thinking energy has not received detailed coverage. Finally, in 2011, Markus Reichle, a neurologist at the University of Washington in St. Louis, delved into the problem. He introduced the concept of the network of the passive mode of the brain (that is, those areas that work when we rest) and opposed it to the network of the active mode (that is, an apparatus for purposeful problem solving).
Analyzing the data obtained through MRI, Reichle and his followers came to the conclusion that in the background, when we do not direct the brain's activity to something specific, it works with a huge layer of unstructured information that is piled up in the subconscious. Linear logic is no longer suitable here, processing occurs by other methods that we are not able to comprehend and control. In fact, all this chaos forms the main source of what is usually called creative thinking: sudden insights "out of nowhere", unexpected solutions, radically new ideas arise here. All the stories of famous (and not so famous) people about how a brilliant idea came to them in the shower stall or in bed illustrate this mechanism.
And everything would be fine, but there is an important basic limitation: at any given moment we are forced to choose between two modes of brain functioning. Passive activity can only be started by suspending active activity, and vice versa. We can either consciously ponder the problem, or throw it at the mercy of our subconscious. For someone who wants to stay at the peak of productivity, it is important to understand at what point to switch the toggle switch - that is, to give yourself a break in the usual sense of the word.
The “rest strategy” consists of three types of breaks: short-term, within the framework of a standard working day, daily sleep breaks and long breaks.
Short breaks: "smoke breaks"
Last time we talked about work cycles, the duration of which was established through observations and interviews with real workers. As the researchers found, on average, the period of productivity in people of different professions lasts an hour and a half, after which there is a need for a short-term - ten to twenty minutes - switching.
For knowledge workers, the need to take a break is usually indicated by a sense of "dead end", fruitless chewing of the problem. Accordingly, if after some time the work suddenly stops progressing, this is a good reason to leave it for a quarter of an hour. This is usually enough time for the brain to delve into background knowledge and bring new material to the surface that may indicate a solution. But it may not be enough. General rule:
The more difficult the task, the longer the pauses between sets should be.
If the head “does not work” even after a long rest, the working day should be considered finished, as far as circumstances allow.
What's the best way to take breaks? The main requirement here is to disconnect the brain from the current task (this is more difficult than it seems, especially for enthusiastic workers), but at the same time not to burden it with anything else that wasting energy. The authors name several options that they consider optimal:
- Stroll. You can just walk down the hallway or up the stairs - fresh air is not required, although it certainly won't hurt. The value of walking is that it requires from the brain just as much effort to coordinate movements as needed - it distracts, but does not burden;
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Humanity has serious problems with sleep - almost everyone who deals with medical issues agrees with this. Seven to nine hours of uninterrupted night sleep is considered the daily norm necessary for a person. In reality, significantly less than half of the US adult population falls short of this figure. And it's not just about the costs of the capitalist order. The problem is fairly young: Back in 1942, the average American slept a perfectly acceptable 7.9 hours a night. Today this figure is 6.8 hours - that is, below the announced norm.
Stahlberg and Magnes believe there are two reasons for this. First, advances in technology encourage us to spend too much time in front of screens, which causes sleep disturbances and allows work to quietly eat up our personal time. Second, distorted priorities and a focus on maximum productivity in the business world create the illusion that sleep can and should be sacrificed, that these are “empty” hours that are not a sin to put into action. Everyone has probably read an interview with a highly qualified specialist in some field, where the notorious "four hours of sleep a day" was mentioned. Even those who are not too suggestible or aiming for success, gradually get used to the idea that snatching a couple of hours from sleep is a common thing and does not bear any consequences, except for weakness and abuse of coffee.
Meanwhile, sleep is perhaps the most valuable (and by far the most underestimated) form of relaxation. The nature and purpose of this physiological process is still largely a mystery to us, but research suggests that sleep performs at least three important functions:
- Processing and consolidating memories. At night, all the information received during the day is subject to revision and analysis at a deep level: what makes sense to save and what place new information will take in the system of our knowledge. The less time we give to the brain, the less chances that everything of value will hold on;
- Emotional relief. Similar processes - processing, mixing, coding of acquired experience - occur in the sphere of emotional experiences;
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In other words, sleep not only helps you get the most out of your day, but it also sets the stage for tomorrow's accomplishments.
Most of the magic of sleep unfolds in its later stages, mainly during what is called REM sleep. It is 20-25% of the total duration of all phases and tends to lengthen with each new cycle. That is, the longer we sleep, the more the “profitability” of sleep grows. It is easy to guess that it is the seventh, eighth and ninth hours, which are usually sacrificed, that are a real gold mine for the brain.
What about the increasingly popular nap habit? First of all, that it does not replace a long night's sleep, even if it arithmetically catches up with the total to the required figure - continuous rest is needed for full recovery and development. However, if your goal is simply to restore energy and concentration, “quiet hour” will really help - sleep effectively turns off the active mode network.
For those who regularly sleep during the day, experts recommend focusing on the duration of 10-30 minutes. This is the optimal time: you will most likely wake up refreshed and rested. If you take longer to rest, there is a risk of entering the deep sleep phase, interrupting it before completion and waking up broken.
If you have the opportunity and need to sleep longer, lay it from one and a half to two hours. Prolonged daytime sleep in a truncated version mimics for the brain what happens during the night. At the same time, there is a serious danger of disrupting the rhythms and losing the opportunity to sleep properly at night. Therefore, this method to cheer up should be used with great care.
Long break: vacation
The authors refer to long rest as all types of breaks that last a day or longer - days off, weekends, vacations.
A twofold situation has developed around this group. On the one hand, very, very many consider them an impermissible luxury. Here you can recall the statistics from the first part, according to which Americans have a six-day work week due to burning vacation days. Even on weekends, it is considered in the order of things to "pick up tails", resting on a leftover principle.
On the other hand, people tend to overestimate the importance of long rest for recovery and prevention of burnout. Often, vacations are spoken of as the only component of a "vacation strategy" that should compensate for any imbalances in everyday life. This scheme impresses many people: you can work for months at a time, at night, without weekends and holidays, and then neutralize all the negative consequences in a week or two.
If we talk about the first misconception: long pauses in work are necessary not only for reasons of humanity, but also in the interests of productivity. Overloading without recovery periods leads to the fact that a person loses the ability not only to grow, but also to give full return, working half-heartedly becomes the norm for him. The authors call this condition the "gray area". A kind of vicious circle develops in the "gray zone": an exhausted employee always does not have time to do something - he considers himself not entitled to rest - the next period begins even less efficient - this deprives him of the chance to find time for rest ... and so on until it stops.
As for the second misconception, long vacations do pay off a lot and can give the impression that everything is fixed, even under poor working conditions. But the effect lasts a maximum of several weeks. After that, the symptoms of burnout will return again, if you do not build a reasonable regimen, alternating stress and rest.
For those who are accustomed to living without leaving the machine, the authors advise to start by arranging for themselves at least one day off in the full sense of the word a week - not to discuss work issues, not to finish any little things, not to burden yourself with self-development. However, ideally, you should strive to regularly take seven to ten days of vacation - this duration is best for motivation, self-awareness and health. It is especially good if you manage to take a break after a period of heavy workload: project delivery, completion of a difficult stage of work, conclusion of a deal, publication of an article.
So, we examined all the components of the author's growth formula, analyzed in detail the concepts of stress and rest and the mechanisms of their interaction. Next time, there are some observations of Stalsberg and Magness about other aspects of organizing work in the long term: goal-setting, maintaining motivation, affirming values.