Resting your brain can be the key to flourishing

Interested in more careers-related content? Check out our new weekly Work Life newsletter. Sent every Monday afternoon.

Joseph Jebelli’s father burned out and Joseph seemed headed for the same fate as he stayed late at work to be seen and came in while ill to prove his dedication. Like his father, he was ignoring his grandmother’s advice that “rest is wisdom.”

A neuroscientist, Dr. Jebelli began to study the brain at rest and realized he needed to change.

“What if I told you that people often succeed in life not despite their inactivity but because of it? What if I told you that, far from being indulgent and unproductive, rest is actually the key to human flourishing?” he writes in The Brain at Rest.

When you disengage from a task, your brain activates what is known as the default network, a circuit of neurons that enables you to daydream, let your mind wander, think reflectively and imagine the future. It’s the ying to your executive brain’s yang, the active go-getter that fuels your directive activity. Your mind roams free as you separate from the pressures of the immediate.

“Activating the default network can enhance your intelligence, creativity, social empathy and long-term productivity. It can improve your health and help stave off neurological disease. It is your brain’s hidden superpower, recharging and rehabilitating your overworked mind,” he says.

A study from University of Amsterdam researchers asked two groups to pick the best car from a set of four, based on a variety of mechanical specifications. Half were given five minutes to concentrate on the task, while the other half were told to chill, take a break and think about unrelated things. Logic would suggest the first group, working longer and in a straightforward manner, would be more effective when they turned their attention to the task but the latter group actually was better at the decision-making phase.

In a Stanford University study of doctors and nurses working a 12-hour shift, those who were told to take a 40-minute nap while the others worked continuously performed better on tests of attention and simulated medical tests, including inserting a catheter into a virtual patient.

The amount of rest needed to activate the benefits is unclear. One key study pointed to 20 minutes but there are suggestions even 10 minutes can do the trick. As a general rule, he says, the more time you spend doing nothing, the better it is for your brain.

Of course, it’s hard to do nothing. Society – above all, our bosses – frowns upon it. Our pesky smartphones undermine any such notions of relaxing the brain, ironically in part by the pretence they are offering a break.

Dr. Jebelli stresses he is not anti-productivity; he is, instead, beseeching us to consider a gateway to enhanced productivity through rest.

“Taking a moment to pause isn’t a luxury but a necessity. It’s in these quiet moments that clarity emerges, problems are solved and we find the strength and wisdom to make meaningful changes, not just in our own lives but in the world,” he writes.

The brain at rest is actually working on your behalf. Marcus Raichle, the neurologist who discovered the default network in 2001, was intrigued by the fact certain important areas of the brain would deactivate when you engage in a task – the opposite of what we would think. In essence, it is like a dimmer switch turning those brain parts down when you are involved in a task and the lights turning up when you relax.

“We need time to ponder the things that are of interest to us,” Dr. Raichle says. “To advise ourselves internally and listen to what’s going on in our minds.”

Dr. Jebelli recommends these practical tips:

• Spend at least 20 minutes a day staring blankly into space. Try not to think about anything in particular. Simply let your mind rest and wander, breathing slowly and deeply through your nose as you do.
• Try to step away from your normal routines and thoughts when you can. He snatches such precious moments just before getting on his bicycle in the morning, pausing to look at the trees lining his street.
• Go for long walks and spend time sitting on public transport, staring out of the window. “Sometimes, when I need inspiration, I take a bus to nowhere in particular,” he says.
• If you have a bathtub, take more baths than showers. It allows extra time for the mind to rest and roam.
• Seek solitude and time for your mind to wander. Ensure proper sleep. Play video games. Just do nothing. Those are all avenues to get away from work, allowing you to work better.

Rest is wisdom.

Quick hits

• Most people assume things feel easier when they’re closer to the end, but researchers including Rotman School of Management marketing professor Claire Tsai found the opposite across seven studies using different settings and tasks. The final stretch often feels worse, not because it’s longer or harder, but because people believe they’ve already done most of the work.
• Not an early riser, Laura Vanderkam has been unable to get her full morning run in before the heat of the day hits. But a short run, she reassures herself, is still a run. Indeed, she adds, for a great many things, something is better than nothing and if “nothing” is what happens while you hold out for something better, you lose out.
• Author Jame Clear says as far as he can tell every great advance in an individual’s life or for the world at large has come from dreams and attempts. So devise more dreams; make more attempts.

Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.