Dr. Alex Pang’s book titled Rest opens eyes to why you get more done when you work less.
Some might ask why we need a book called Rest. It should be the easiest thing to do. Do we need a book on “How to Breathe?” Professionals such as opera singers and swimmers use breathing skillfully to improve their stamina, project voices and calm their minds. We can be more restorative, stimulate creativity and improve quality of life by practicing deliberate rest.Over workers should begin to look at deliberate rest differently.
Why do we overwork?
Professionals, or white-collar workers, work longer than blue-collar workers. They have technology that makes work easier for them. Today’s knowledge workers struggle to measure how much they do and if it shows value. How much they work becomes an effortless way to prove how productive and committed they are.
Our image of success looks different today. Our most famous entrepreneurs, like Gates, Jobs and Zuckerberg made the old model of success of moving up the ladder look old fashioned. The old model of success is gone. Now, there’s a race to get ahead, working heroically long hours. Today’s successful people are more creative and visionary and passionate about what they do. Driven by an irresistible vision, they work long hours ignoring family and refusing to stop until their work is perfect. They’re setting the tone for everyone else.
Today, everyone thinks they must have passion and they must express it through long hours at the office. Not just bosses but peers do as well. Sleep deprivation is part of the job. Learning to deal with that is part of developing the professional identity. If everyone around you works long hours, you will too. And, you’ll come to see this as natural.
Smart phones allow us to check email or voice messages quickly and now we feel we must be accessible. We assume the more time we spend at work, the more productive we are. Like machines, the longer we run, the more we make.
It’s good to be able to rise to the challenge and put in long hours when necessary right before a big event or during the busy season or during an emergency. But it’s not good to do it all the time.
The Science of Rest
Doctors, sociologists, neuroscientists and psychologists have done studies that will help us to understand why chronic overwork is destructive and counterproductive. Their work shows us why rest is valuable and how certain types of rest can help us to be more creative. And why some rest patterns work better than others.
The brain is one of the most complex systems scientists have ever dealt with. There is a lot they don’t know about the brain today, and how creativity works. Dr. Alex Pang says if the brain is an ocean, we’re still wading around close to the shore. This means brain science doesn’t translate into easy to digest recommendations or quick fixes. What science can do is explain why deliberate rest is important and how it can enhance creativity and quality of life. And, what kinds of rest are most fruitful, which gives us the knowledge to make our own decisions.
A century of research tells us that overworking is overrated. We may feel that we’re getting more done by putting in more hours, but this may not be true. As early as the 1880s some factory managers suspected that lengthening the workday drove productivity down rather than up. During World War I, economists found proof. They discovered that when factories moved from a 40-hour week to a 70-hour week, productivity rose for a couple of months. But as chronic fatigue set in, turnover and absenteeism increased, errors mounted, and quality slipped. Productivity fell back to earlier levels or even below that of factory workers working 40 hours per week. The lesson was that chronic overwork affects overall happiness. It increases the odds of burnout, being prone to diseases and dementia later in life.
Scientists have shown that our bodies and brains benefit from time off. We also benefit from distinct types of rest than others. For a long time, Scientists assumed the amount of time people rested determined how much they got out of their rest. But, in the 1990s, Israeli sociologists discovered that military reservists returning from active duty were as refreshed as people who had gone on holiday.
This led them to conclude the time-based model was wrong. And, how one spends vacation matters more than how long they’re on vacation. How much one can mentally escape from the stresses of work and ordinary life plays the bigger role in determining how much one is recharged. The higher the level of detachment from work, the more restorative time off is.
The more you love your job, the more you need to take a break from it.
While we usually think of rest as passive, the most restorative kinds of rest are active. Physically engaging and mentally absorbing activities do a better job of taking our minds off work and restoring our mental energy. Like how exercise can energize us more than a staring at a computer or TV screen for a couple of hours.
“Rest until you feel like playing, then play until you feel like resting”. ~ Martha Beck
Secrets behind world class performers
Professional athletes
Professional athletes discovered the power of rest and use it to become world class performers. They train long and hard to improve their performance. No matter the sport, elite athletes are managing rest to improve overall performance. They design rest periods between and after practices to speed learning and recovery. It turns out this helps them merge memories and get more out of workouts. While on long road trips they consciously adjust sleep schedules to minimize the effects of jet lag. They used to view sleep deprivation as part of the job and their ability to play through fatigue as a sign of toughness. Not anymore.
United States Navy
Some US Navy ships and submarines are experimenting with watch schedules designed to help sailors to stay more alert by getting more rest. Traditionally, watch schedules didn’t pay any attention to circadian rhythm (a 24-hour internal clock that is running in the background of your brain and cycles between sleepiness and alertness at regular intervals. It’s also known as your sleep/wake cycle) .Learn more from the National Sleep Foundation about circadian rhythm. On ships they may stay on watch for five hours then ten hours off. Submarines used to work on an 18-hour day with six hours on watch and twelve hours off. For a long time, sailors considered sleep deprivation part of life.
But modern war ships are high-tech complex environments where sailors must evaluate threats and make quick decisions. It’s hard to stay alert, remain vigilant, process information and make fast decisions when fighting fatigue and the body is confused about what time it is. Surface ships are experimenting with a more regular schedule, three hours on and nine off or four hours on and eight off. Submarines are shifting to an 8-hour watch. Either way, these new schedules are meant to work with sailors’ circadian rhythm. This allows them to be more alert when on duty and giving their bodies better rest on their off hours.
Creative Individuals
Finally, you see the same devotion of deliberate rest in the daily schedules of highly creative individuals. But there are some differences in the way they organize their time and how they balance work and rest. While elite athletes need to schedule their rest around practice and game schedules, creatives are more likely to organize their working time. So, they do their most important work first when they’re most focused in the morning. Rather than scheduling their sleep to guarantee they’ll be at their mental peak at game time, creatives schedule game time when they are at their peak.
“Take a rest. A field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” ~ Ovid
If you want to have better and more productive lives, consider these ten ideas:
- Take rest seriously. Don’t treat rest as something to do when you’re finished. We’re never finished. We must take time for rest and defend it.
- Focus. Structure daily schedule around unbroken periods of unfocused work. Example: concentrate on your biggest tasks in the morning. Put off meetings until after lunch or only check emails two or three times a day.
- Layer work and rest. Alternate periods of intensive work with periods of deliberate rest. Resting after focused work can give your subconscious mind time to discover solutions to problems that are eluding your conscience efforts.
- Get an early start. A regular morning routine pays off. Just remember to claim back some of the time later in the day.
- Detach from work. Pay attention to the quality of rest. Give yourself activities that will occupy your mind.
- Detach from devices. It’s not enough to leave the office, when your email can follow you. You can’t have deliberate rest without disconnecting from technology. Check out this app to help manage your screen time. Thrive Away.
- Take a week off every three months if possible.
- Practice deep play. Hobbies or activities that are physically or cognitively engaging offer the same psychological rewards of jobs, but in different settings.
- Get plenty of exercise. Office work is demanding. The more movement you have in your life the better your brain can perform. Also, exercise helps you deal with stress.
- Get plenty of sleep. The simplest yet hardest thing to do in our busy lives. Don’t think of it as lost time. Sleep is a time of mental activity, giving our brains time to merge memories and skills and clear out toxins that are associated with dementia later in life.
In Conclusion
Learning to practice deliberate rest isn’t easy, but it’s worthwhile. Having the patience to cultivate a practice and to give it time to mature and to be aware of its benefits all require a level of mindfulness you can develop. Take an attitude to trade a frantic rush of work for a more measured and constant pace. Giving your mind quiet time to explore ideas and develop new insights and seeking out rest, rather than perpetually at work is essential.