This week’s Better You, Backed by Science is about how rest is a crucial part of productivity.
I usually do this post on a Wednesday.
Instead, I spent most of the last few days resting.
I’d been struggling with what I thought was just a cold, but after it lingered for over a week, I saw my doctor. It turned out to be a sinus infection, and her advice was wonderfully simple.
Rest for a few days.
I’ll be honest – I hadn’t really been doing that.
I’d been trying to keep working on my new book – pushing to make a deadline – convincing myself I could simply push through. But I found it increasingly difficult to concentrate.
The words came more slowly, and my thinking felt unusually foggy.
Then something interesting happened.
After doing very little for a couple of days, my mind began to feel clearer.
It reminded me of something we often forget.
Rest isn’t the opposite of productivity.
It’s part of it.
We often think of the brain as though it were a machine. We expect it to keep producing ideas, solving problems and making decisions for hour after hour.
But the brain isn’t a machine.
It’s a living system.
And like every living system, it needs rhythm.
Just as our hearts beat and pause, our lungs breathe in and out, and our muscles recover after exercise, our brains also alternate between periods of effort and recovery.
Interestingly, neuroscientists have found that when we stop focusing on a task, the brain doesn’t simply switch off. It continues working behind the scenes, consolidating memories, integrating ideas and restoring the attentional resources that help us think clearly.
In other words…
Space isn’t empty.
Space is where the brain catches up.
Perhaps that’s why some of our best ideas arrive in the shower, while walking the dog, or during a quiet cup of tea rather than when we’re staring determinedly at a screen.
Sometimes the breakthrough doesn’t come because we worked harder.
It comes because we finally gave our brain enough space to do its work.
Here’s something to try this week.
Build just ten minutes of space into your day.
No phone.
No emails.
No podcast.
No pressure to achieve anything.
Just a few quiet minutes to let your mind wander.
You don’t have to earn that space.
Your brain already knows how to use it.
Because perhaps one of the most productive things we can do…
…is occasionally stop trying to be productive.
References (for those who wish to explore further)
Here’s a landmark paper introducing the Default Mode Network, showing that the brain remains highly active during wakeful rest:
Raichle, M. E., et al. (2001). A default mode of brain function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(2), 676–682. Link.
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