The Value & Importance Of Taking A Break
The value & necessity of taking a break in these fast paced times couldn’t be more relevant in today’s world
Picture this. You’re eating your daily lunch but instead of eating your food mindfully, your mind is constantly drifting to all kinds of work related thoughts.
Drafting that proposal or presentation, contacting that investor, that client meeting or that pending task at work, that Google Meet call, that journey back home after office hours & worrying about the traffic, what time you need to leave, what time you need to reach home for dinner. By the time you know it, you’ve finished your lunch. You’re full, but are you satisfied, fulfilled & happy?
All you had to do was the simple act of eating lunch mindfully & deliberately only focusing on your food, for a pause.
It’s a commonplace example which we all can relate to. We have similar thoughts weighing on us that prevent us from being mindful & living in the moment and the essential ‘pauses’ we need in life.
It’s these pauses that are usually very important as we proceed to live our lives and as we age.
If we don’t take time to pause every now and then, life is going to pass us by really fast. We live life at such a high octane speed in this modern era like Usain Bolt (the world’s fastest man) pushing himself from the start to that extra bit to win his 100 meter dash.
Life is not a 100 meter sprint. And even Usain Bolt can’t run several 100 meter races one after another.
We all need to pause every once in a while, and just do — nothing.
A few weeks ago, I was absolutely exhausted with everything going on in my life. 2022 was a hyper productive year for me — I released a book, put out several EPs & LPs as a producer under my stage name ‘Ghost Intent’, worked on 20+ short film scores as a composer, enrolled in a programming course & launched a content startup after developing the website myself, apart from all the investor & client meetings, team recruitment, daily work on the platform and regularly practicing the guitar & piano & posting covers on Instagram (although music is my fall back space which I like to turn to in my downtime)
But I was still constantly at it all, day after day, minute after minute, just work & all the planning, execution and worrisome aspects of running a startup, and even making music in my free time, was creatively exhausting me.
It continued into February. But by mid Feb, I was completely exhausted & was suffering from considerable burnout. It soon affected my health & I was down with malaria for 2 weeks.
That’s when I decided that I just needed a break.
I put everything on hold & decided to travel to my favourite beach destination in India — Gokarna.
I must admit, the journey was rather stressful as well, but as soon as I reached and saw the sunrise over the hills on Om Beach. It stirred something inside me and I was at complete peace & ever so relaxed.
For the first few days, I barely even looked at my phone except to play music & take pictures & videos. I decided to put all my work & work related thoughts & worries aside & just focus on myself & let the ocean’s unerring waves & its calm slowly seep into my mind & bring me peace.
I used this time to just sit by a view of the ocean at the wonderfully picturesque homestay I booked. And eat & drink mindfully by just focusing on the food & the view.
There’s something about the calmness of the waves & the light blue water & the way the sunlight shines on the sea’s surface and makes the droplets dance like stars on the ocean surface as the sun leaves a trail of burning light through the center of the sea.
The sea is peace & the shoreline is home, for me.
When I finally did open up LinkedIN to see my notifications, my college batchmate, Anubhav, who’s also a writer, posted an article about the importance of taking a break, and it was at the perfect time!
In his LinkedIN article, Anubhav writes,
Modern life goes so fast, and we miss all the good things if we don’t take time to pause every now and then. But how do we create this space in our lives to give ourselves rest?
First, we must understand some things.
Extractivism
We want to extract everything out of every moment. It is a societal phenomenon that we think of things in such a way. It’s not surprising that our world is in the situation it is in. We’ve extracted every natural resource we find and exploited it without thinking of the consequences. Be it coal, gas, forests, land, animals and so on have been used and abused for our own personal and collective ends. Now, we are doing the same with our time. So, to change the world we also need to learn to change the models of our world.
Efficiency and productivity
We are humans and not machines. Yet we operate our lives as if we could be switched on and off like a screen. If time is a precious resource, then we’d better not waste it. But this thinking forces us to conform to the time we have and since time never stops, we can only anxiously try and make the most of it.
How can we see this differently? We can look at nature. Both inside and outside us nature has cycles. We call these cycles seasons, moon cycles, economic cycles, sleep cycles, menstrual cycles and our own internal clocks called circadian rhythms. We look at all of these as ways of telling us when to go and when to stop.
We’re more productive after taking short breaks. Our bodies are wired to perform more productively after taking these breaks. No musician can play an entire concert of songs without taking breaks.
Breaks, pauses, reflection, relaxing, reading, & at times just doing absolutely nothing, are a much needed & necessary way to spend our time.
There’s also the case for the “four day work week”, which I’m about to write about shortly in another Medium post, which is based on a TED Talk by Juliet Schor.
Even legendary Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke reflected on how he was more musically creative after naps in a podcast, that I covered in an old post of mine.
Anubhav further reflects on ‘productive work’ & ‘reflective work’, where he writes,
Productive work needs little explanation as it is the act of producing or creating something and involves a wide variety of activities including administration, coordination and all kinds of communication.
Then there is reflective work, which we don’t often think of as work. But this kind of activity is important because this is where the ideas to do the things we do arise from. Insights and reflections often happen in moments when we let go. We have all noticed an idea in the shower of a spontaneous solution popping up just before we fall asleep. It is because these are moments when we have let go of the need to produce.
It’s absolutely paramount to go slow & take things easy & more essentially de-clutter our minds & relax our bodies so that we can perform better when we need to.
Mindfulness & meditation & other breathing techniques or just spending time with nature with a pristine view & some healthy food & juice can do wonders.
Anubhav lists a few practical exercises, in his post
Take time in your day to do non-productive things like walking, looking out a window, playing with something. Basically, any activity that has no end goal but is a process.
Leave gaps in your agenda for work that wants to naturally spring out from the inside. Not all the work we do needs to be directed by the demands of the outside world.
Try breathing exercises before you start the day and in between stressful meetings.
If you notice yourself getting overwhelmed during the day, this is a great hint to take a step back from your work and engage in reflective activities.
So essentially, most of us are living at breakneck speed, and that can hamper our well-being. We can’t expect to work like clockwork and the importance of taking a step back, relaxing & winding-down when it’s required is necessary as we aim to be more productive with our ideas, goals and work.
It’s all about balance. And taking a break is as requisite as eating every day, which is why I started this article with the lunch analogy, inspired by my college friend’s article.
I also had some time to make two very calm and relaxing DJ sets/playlists on my short vacation here in Gokarna.
You can listen to them here:
Set #1
Set #2
There’s also this one song that has the perfect name & vibe for this article. It’s called “Nothing Is Something Worth Doing”, which my friends & I discovered during my college years.
So to summarise, practicing mindfulness, taking naps & breaks, spending time with nature, & breathing exercises & any activity that allows us to wind-down and reconnect with ourselves & establish a calm mind & focus on our well being is the most quintessential need of the hour in these fast paced times.
I hope the message is clear.
Take a break.
Work can wait, life cannot.
