Take a More Effective Break by Letting Your Mind Wander
We know it’s important to leave work from time to time. Taking a break will help you focus and increase your productivity. But it also matters how you rest. For a more effective break that really revives your brain, avoid any activity that requires your attention.
Farnam Street explains that some of the breaks still require our attention. For example, walking around the city often requires you to be clearly aware of everything that is happening around you. The problem is that you are not completely distracting your attention by allowing that part of your brain to recharge. They point to the book, Focus: The Hidden Engine of Excellence, by Daniel Goleman, points out that letting your mind wander is important for ” restoring attention .”
This recovery occurs when we switch from heightened attention, where the mind has to suppress distractions, to letting ourselves go and letting our attention be captured by whatever happens … a walk in a park or forest requires little or no attention. … … We can recuperate by spending time in nature – even a few minutes walking in a park or in any environment rich in charm, such as the muted red clouds at sunset or the fluttering of a butterfly. This “humble”, as the Kaplan group put it, triggers upward attention, allowing downward effort patterns to replenish their energies, restore mindfulness and memory, and improve cognitive performance.
When I take a “break,” it often means just step away from the computer to talk about a walk, sit outside, and so on, but my focus is still on work issues. Of course, a change of scene is useful for certain tasks . But to truly recover from cognitive fatigue, the idea is to distract yourself and let your thoughts wander in whatever direction they like. Attention recovery theory states that this allows you to regain your cognitive abilities and get back to work at full speed.
Read more about this on the links below.
Spotlight: The Hidden Engine of Excellence | Daniel Goleman via Farnam Street