Research on naps, meditation, nature walks and the habits of exceptional artists and athletes reveals how mental breaks increase productivity, replenish attention, solidify memories and encourage creativity
“[...] puritanical devotion to perpetual busyness does not in fact translate to greater productivity and is not particularly healthy. What if the brain requires substantial downtime to remain industrious and generate its most innovative ideas? “Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets,” essayist Tim Kreider wrote in The New York Times . “ The space and quietness that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration -- it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.”
“Downtime (vacation, napping, meditating, relaxing, time spent in parks, gardens and other peaceful outdoor spaces) replenishes the brain’s stores of attention and motivation, encourages productivity and creativity, and is essential to both achieve our highest levels of performance and simply form stable memories in everyday life. A wandering mind unsticks is in time so that we can learn from the past and plan from the future [...], and maintain a sense of self.”
“[...] a particular set of scattered brain regions consistently became less active when someone concentrated on a mental challenge, but began to fire in synchrony ... when their thoughts wandered.”
“[...] Default Mode Network (DMN) is the complex circuit that stirs to life when people are day dreaming [...]. When we rest, the brain is anything but idle,.., downtime is essential to mental processes that affirms our identities, develop our understanding of human behaviors and instill an internal code of ethics--processes that depend on the DMN.”
“Downtime is an opportunity for the brain to make sense of what it has recently learned [...]”.
“[...] the mind obliquely (indirectly) solves tough problems while daydreaming--an experience many people have had while taking a shower. Epiphanies may seem to come out of nowhere, but they are often the product of unconscious mental activity during downtime. Solutions emerge from the subconscious in this way only when the distracting task is relatively simple, such as solving an anagram or engaging in a routine activity that does not necessitate much deliberate concentration, like brushing one’s teeth or washing dishes”.
“With the right kind of distraction, DMN may be able to integrate more information from a wide range of brain regions in more complex way than when the brain is consciously working through a problem.”
“For decades scientists have suspected that when an animal or person is not actively learning something new, the brain consolidates recently accumulated data, memorizing the most salient information, and essentially rehearses recently learned skills, etching them in to its tissue. Dozens of studies have confirmed that memory depends on sleep”.
“ A tantalizing piece of evidence suggests that the brain may take advantage of every momentary lapse in attention to let resting state networks take over.”
“... electrical impulses in people’s brains were recorded as they watched clips of Mr. Bean . The results revealed that the brain can fire up the default mode network in the blink of an eye -- literally * . Every time we blink, circuits that we use to consciously direct attention go quiet and the DMN briefly wakes up. What it accomplishes in these interludes remains unclear, but it could very well be a form of memory consolidation or a moment of for attention-directing neurons to catch their breath.”
“Some researchers have proposed that people are also physiologically inclined to snooze during a 2 P.M. to 4 P.M. “nap zone” - the afternoon slump - because the brain prefers to toggle between sleep and wake more than once a day.”
“Plenty of studies have established that naps sharpen concentration and improve the performance of both the sleep-deprived and the fully rested on all kinds of tasks, from driving to medical care.”
“Long naps work great when people have enough time to recover from “sleep inertia” --- post-nap grogginess that, in some cases, can take more than 2 hrs to fade. In other situations micronaps may be a smarter strategy.”
“10 minute naps immediately enhanced performance just as much as longer naps without any grogginess [...] a mere seven to 10 minutes of sleep may be enough to restore wake-circuit neurons to their former excitability.”
“Numerous studies have shown that meditation strengthens connections between regions of the DMN, for example, and can help people learn to more effective shift between the DMN and the circuits that are most active when we are consciously fixated on a task. Over time expert meditators may also develop a more intricately wrinkled cortex - the brain’s outer layer, which is necessary for many of our most sophisticated mental abilities, like abstract thought and introspection.”
“Meditation appears to increase the volume and density of the hippocampus, a seahorse-shape area of the brain that is absolutely crucial for memory; it thickens regions of the frontal cortex tat we rely on to rein in our emotions; and it stymies the typical wilting of brain areas responsible for sustaining attention as we get older.”
“... a couple weeks of meditation or a mere 10 to 20 mins of mindfulness a day can whet the mind -- if people stick with it. A few studies indicate that meditating daily is ultimately more important than the total hours of meditation over one’s lifetime.”
“Michael Taft advocates deliberate mental breaks during “all the in-between moments” in an average day - a subway ride, lunch, a walk to the bodega. He stresses, though, that there is a big difference between admiring the idea of more downtime and committing to it in practice.”