The world is getting busier and busier – it feels there is never any downtime, so you start asking yourself, when can I take a break?
We then promptly push those feelings aside. Continuing to eat a granola bar instead of having lunch as we head to the next meetings, then picking up the kids, and finishing the night with a virtual networking night. These actions continue for five days and then, finally, the weekend! Which becomes busy with house-hold chores, family obligations, and other responsibilities.
Don’t worry if you are feeling anxious about this. A 2018 Pew Research Study found 72% of U.S adults said they at least sometimes feel too busy to enjoy life, and 12% said they felt this way all or most of the time.
Learning when to take a break can significantly alter these figures and help you start feeling healthier, happier, and more satisfied with your life.
The Signs You Need to Take a Break
Sometimes we can continue without ever needing a break and then one day all the fatigue hits us like running into a wall. Usually, it is some small mundane tasks that push us over the edge. Reaching the post office just as it’s closing, a snide work email, or the dishes have to be washed is what sends us spiraling into an anxious and stressed mood about feeling overwhelmed with life. That irritability is just one signal of you might need a break. Research shows other signs include:
- Chronic stress
- Cynicism about work
- Difficulty concentrating
- Getting sick more frequently
- Low mood
- Lack of energy
- Headaches or stomach aches
- Sleep disturbances
- Social withdrawal from friends, family, or co-workers
Overall, you are not yourself. You feel stressed, your body is aching, you are withdrawing from your relationships and your work, and you aren’t feeling motivated to tackle these problems.
Most likely, you are burned-out. There are 8 different types of burnout and they all look a little different. To help figure out which burnout you have, you can check out our guide which dives into each of them and can help you make sense of what you are feeling.
Slowing Down Life
The best way to defeat burnout and the feeling of always having to ask yourself when to take a break is to get ahead of the stress by slowing life down.
I am not advocating for moving to the woods and building a cabin akin to Walden’s Pond – but I am saying we all can be a little better about slowing day-to-day life down.
We can still be productive, type-A, and conquer all our hopes and dreams for a better life. However, instead of grinding our teeth up that hill, I’ve personally found life is a little more enjoyable when I am mindful and try to go with the flow while still directing where I want my boat to go.
I still need help with it too – but I’ve found that learning to slow down life has helped me feel a little less stressed and a little happier. Which I consider a monumental gain for my shift in mindset.
To learn to slow-down life, check-out two summaries of how to slow-down life.
The Problems of Never Taking a Break
Never taking a break can be disastrous for us.
We become irritable and cynical, our bodies start to become sick, we lose energy and motivation, and we pull away from those closest to us.
The Benefits of Taking a Break
1. Increased Work Performance
A recent study found the most productive employees work 52 minutes, and then take a 17-minute break. Similar to the Pomodoro method, those who take frequent, smaller breaks are more productive than those who work through the entire 9+ hour work-day.
It’s not the specific time that matters, but simply the act of putting the task down for a little lets people come back to it with renewed energy and a new perspective.
2. Better Emotional Regulation
People’s mind naturally wonders into a default mode (DM). Those whose minds are better rested tend to wander to neutral, happy, or productive mind spaces. Those who are stressed or burned-out tend to wander to negative places.
When you are relaxed, your mind naturally wanders to mental spaces that are more beneficial to you.
3. Better Problem-Solving
In a study of 108, 10–12-year old participants, they were given simple to complex problems to solve. The children who reached the furthest puzzles and showed the most perseverance in the face of problems specifically designed to stump them did one thing differently than those who stopped on easier puzzles.
The children who navigated the complex puzzles took breaks in-between attempts. It served as space for them to regulate their emotions, think of new solutions, and tackle the problem with that renewed energy. Instead of simply banging their head against the proverbial wall trying to figure the puzzle out.
4. Better Teaming and Negotiating
In a study of participants in a simulated negotiation environment – some groups were allowed to take breaks during the session, and others had to finish the session in one go.
Those groups who were allowed to take breaks ended up using a more collaborative negotiation style and they scored higher in getting their specific negotiation goals. Taking breaks allowed both parties to get what they wanted, and was conducive for creating an amicable negotiation environment.
The Different Types of Breaks
When feeling like you need to take a break and recover from burnout – there are several different strategies you can take. With different methods working for different people.
1. Microbreaks
In less than five minutes, sprinkle these throughout your day. After working for thirty minutes and you feel yourself dragging, take a micro-break. Set a timer and give yourself a little mental relief.
2. Lunch Breaks
Usually 30 minutes to an hour, it provides a space in the day to get away from the problems at work, or at least chat with co-workers. Taking them can be useful and helps you reset for an afternoon.
3. Early Afternoon
Taking a few hours off before work, say at 2 PM or 3 PM at the end of the week can rejuvenate employees and boost morale. Studies have found that letting employees work flexible hours or take an early day once a week helped reduce burnout and let them feel like they could handle their responsibilities outside of work while still having time for themselves.
4. An Hour Before Bed
Take an hour before bed to decompress. Put away the email, and responsibilities if you can. Taking the hour before bed helps you focus on yourself and ease into the night for a better night’s sleep.
5. A Personal Day
Take a day to focus on your mental health, or simply have fun. By taking a day for yourself you can re-center and better tackle your challenges the next day.
6. A long weekend
Take a 3-4 day break to rejuvenate yourself. You can pepper in some responsibility but taking a long weekend lets you have an extra day or two outside of the normal weekend to focus on something other than your normal responsibilities.
7. A vacation
Take 1-2 weeks off and do something new. Visit a new location, try a new class, or simply go to a different part of town for a few days. Getting away from your routine helps you evaluate what you are doing and come back renewed and possibly re-prioritized to what you want.
8. The Sabbatical
If your work allows it, you could take one month or more to rest and recover. Travel to a new location, start the side hustle you’ve always wanted to do, and spend time with those who mean the most to you. Getting a long time away from your usual responsibilities lets you make some life-changing decisions and lets you refocus on what lifestyle is authentic to who you want to be.
Tips on When to Take a Break
Get some sleep and take self-initiated breaks
Studies show that simply getting enough sleep and taking breaks that are constructive for you helps in the long-run of avoiding burnout. When in doubt, try those two methods first.
How to Take a Better Small Break
When learning how to take a break, the importance is focusing on letting yourself see the signs you need a break and allowing yourself to take a break to recover.
Once you’ve learned to see the signs and have incorporated breaks into your daily life – you can focus on maximizing your breaks without losing focus.
Ellen Hendriksen of the Savvy Psychologists offers 7 Strategies to Maximize a Break without losing focus.
1. Any Break is Better Than No Break
A study in Applied Cognitive Psychology ran a head-to-head comparison of five different kinds of breaks. Everyone was asked to focus on a task that required sustained attention for 45 minutes. In the middle, participants took a 5-minute break to play on their phones, sit in silence, listen to a Coldplay song, watch a Coldplay video, or choose between the song and the video. Compared to the group that took no break at all, the performance was better in every single one of the break conditions.
2. Make Your Break Different Than Your Work
Researchers from the University of Illinois hypothesize that even when we’re actively attending to stimuli, like a work project or other tasks they dub cognitive goals, we habituate as time goes by, making task-unrelated thoughts (aka distractions) more active.
Therefore, the researchers proposed that “deactivating a cognitive goal”—in other words, taking a break—can keep habituation from occurring. After the break, the goal is reactivated.
Therefore, for your break, do something 180 degrees different than what you were doing. For those of us who stare at a screen all day, that rules out taking a break by staring at our phone. Instead, doing something physical like a few jumping jacks, or going for a walk at lunch.
3. But Take Breaks That Keep You in a Work Mindset
Productive procrastination is the idea that you do something less critical but still work-related over your most critical item. For instance, instead of writing that 8-page report, you decide to clean the house or schedule a dentist appointment. Both are important tasks. – but they pale in comparison to your main objective.
Productive procrastination may be full of pitfalls, but the very same types of tasks—productive but easy like sorting the mail or searching online for plane tickets—can be perfect for taking a break. Productive tasks that don’t require much brainpower but still provide contrast to your work can downshift your gears without taking you out of a work mindset.
4. Take a Micro-break (H3)
Work in a break that is under a minute into your schedule.
The bonus? They can be effective. Researchers from the University of Melbourne asked participants to complete a tedious task that required close attention—specifically, pressing a computer key when any numerical digit except ‘3’ appeared on their computer screen. In the middle of the task, half the participants were shown a picture of a building with a bare concrete roof for just 40 seconds, while the other half were shown a picture of a flowering green roof for 40 seconds.
Those who saw the green roof made significantly fewer mistakes on their subsequent task, providing a shout-out for both microbreaks and green city roofs. Even under a minute of staring out the window, it turns out, can be good for your productivity.
5. Trade the Mid-afternoon Slump for a Morning Break
Most of us head for Starbucks during the 3:00 pm mid-afternoon slump, but a study out of the Journal of Applied Psychology found that a break in the morning was more productive. Why? Essentially, by 3:00 pm, it’s too late. You’re already drained and only good for brainless administrative tasks or cleaning out your email inbox. But in the morning, you can still regain your 9:00 am levels of focus after a rejuvenating break. Many of us focus better in the morning, so extend our peak productivity by taking breaks around 10 or 11.
6. Don’t Break Flow
As great as breaks are, you don’t need to follow your Pomodoro timer slavishly. If your work seems to be doing itself, your ideas are flowing as fast as your adrenaline, or if you’re so absorbed you’ve lost track of time, rock on. Don’t take a break just because you think you “should.”
The dirty secret about breaks is that it can be hard to get your mojo back, so if you’re happily chugging along, there’s no need to step on the brakes.
Looking for more tips on how to be productive, check out our guide here!
7. But When It’s Time to Rest, Rest Like You Mean It
After your work is over, rest as you mean it. If your workweek keeps you tethered to your email, dare to leave it behind on the weekend, or at least until Sunday night. Use evenings and weekends to put away your to-do list, do activities that take you out and away from work completely, and see friends and family.
Here’s another way to think about it: Be inspired by your cat or dog—when they rest, they rest full-on. They don’t check Twitter or think about Monday morning. They find a sunny spot and rest like it’s the only thing on the agenda. Because it is.
Key Take-aways
- The fast-paced society we live in values productivity which can lead to burn-out and stress
- Being burned out and stressed isn’t helpful for ourselves or those in our lives
- To limit these feelings, taking a variety of breaks is a proven way to feel more relaxed, get more done, and have more fun
Action item
For your next three workdays. start implementing micro-breaks. Under-five minutes or less. Start to see how you feel when you allow yourself time in the workday to simply decompress and relax a little.
