How to Take a Break the Right Way - The Neuroscience Behind Mental Recovery

Two weeks ago, we explored dopamine and ​unlocking the secrets of the flow state​.

A brief recap: Peak mental performance happens in a four-stage cycle.

1. Struggle: A phase of agitation and mental discomfort

2. Release: Persist through the struggle and your brain rewards you with dopamine, making flow possible

3. Flow: Complete immersion in the task

4. Recovery: Crucial to refresh the mind for the next cycle

The significance of the recovery phase is often overlooked but can't be overstated.

Much like a farmer's field that isn’t given a break will quickly lose its fertility, so too will a mind that’s overworked.

Let's dive deeper into how we can take a break the right way, thereby enhancing our mental sharpness and well-being.

1. How do you take a break?

I used to check social media, email, chat messages... during work breaks.

But little did I know this habit was actually counterproductive.

Such activities release dopamine - the molecule of motivation - instead of replenishing it.

Here's the deal: Everyone has a dopamine baseline. Engaging in high-dopamine activities, like gaming or drugs, can raise this baseline. As a result, you need more stimulation to feel the same dopamine effect.

Bonus fact: if you have a high baseline, you tend not to be able to enjoy the little things as much.

Now, here's why this is crucial: Focusing - especially on boring tasks - demands a significant amount of dopamine. But if you indulge in high-dopamine activities during breaks, you're decreasing your sensitivity to it.

So, to improve focus, it's important that you lower your baseline during a break, not increase it.

The solution? Take boring breaks: walk, exercise, meditate, stretch...

Avoid activities that spike dopamine more than your post-break task.

Thought: I think this is the key reason why the pomodoro technique never worked for me. After doing 25 minutes of work, I rewarded myself with 5 minutes of dopamine, which then depleted my motivation to get back to it.

2. What do you do when you wait?

Moments of waiting - for a meeting, bathroom visit, standing in line - are often filled with quick phone checks.

The same principles apply here. These fleeting distractions fracture our attention.

Instead, try to savour these moments of stillness and bring yourself back to the present.

Embrace boredom, practice doing nothing, and your baseline of what's boring will shift.

You will be ready to go into whatever comes next with complete attention.

3. Are you a multitasker or a monotasker?

For those who believe they've mastered multitasking, Clifford Nass's research offers a reality check. (He is the Stanford Professor of Communications)

In his words:

"People who multitask all the time can't filter out irrelevancy. They can't manage a working memory. They're chronically distracted. They initiate much larger parts of their brain that are irrelevant to the task at hand... They're pretty much mental wrecks."

Gary Keller too, author of ​The One Thing​, is convinced the research on multitasking paints a clear picture:

"With research overwhelmingly clear, it seems insane that - knowing how multitasking leads to mistakes, poor choices, and stress - we attempt it anyway. For whatever the reason, the results are unambiguous: multitasking slows us down and makes us slower witted."

The act of constantly switching tasks can eat up nearly 28% of your workday - a hidden cost few realize they're even paying.

From the One Thing by Gary Keller

But there's hope. You can rewire and train your brain by monotasking - giving your undivided attention to just one thing.

Much like a sport athlete maintains their health even outside workouts, think of yourself as a mental athlete. Try focusing on one thing at a time and eliminate all distractions.

Would you like to learn more about how to eliminate distractions? I'd love to hear your thoughts! Reply to this email or tweet at me ​@Sandrerooo​.

Fun Fact of the Week

Standford psychologist Laura Carstensen used an fMRI scanner to study how the brain reacts to positive and negative images.

Young participants' amygdala - a center of emotion - activated for both types of images.

However, for the elderly, it only fired for positive images.

Carstensen hypothesizes that the elderly subjects had trained the prefontal cortex to inhibit the amygdala in the presence of negative stimuli.

The elderly subjects were not happier because their life circumstances were better; they were instead happier because they had rewired their brains to ignore the negative and savor the positive.

By skillfully managing their attention, they improved their world without changing anything concrete about it.

This is from a short passage from ​Deep Work​.

Quote of the Week

Curiosity is the beginning of knowledge. Action is the beginning of change. - James Clear

Have a great week!

Sandrero