in.sight
a newsletter for the eyes of the mind
SERIES 01 | ISSUE 09
Here’s your evidence-based permission slip to rest
Only twenty minutes to sleep, but you dream of some epiphany. Just one single glimpse of relief, to make some sense of what you’ve seen.
– Taylor Swift, Epiphany (Folklore)
Burnout is a wall I tend to hit more times than I need. It’s a feeling of physical, mental, and emotional depletion. As a person who thrives of productivity and ambition, the absence of motivation and drive can be a huge blow. But what’s worse is the guilt you feel when resting. Not to mention the guilt for feeling guilty (see how it spirals?).
Over the years, burnout recovery has opened me to explore the science of rest. One book that really helped back then was Cal Newport’s Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. The book included an entire section about the power of downtime which addressed my distorted perspectives and helped me appreciate rest more. So, let’s relieve some of that rest-guilt with some evidence-based tickets into the science of rest:
1) Rest boosts creativity and insight
We’ve all experienced this: we come across a problem at work and end the day feeling frustrated. But after sleeping on it, you come up with the perfect solution. That’s because when your conscious brain rests, your unconscious brain switches on to untangle complex professional challenges.
2) Rest replenishes focus
Focus is like a muscle. We can train it to be more efficient and to improve its endurance. But overworking it, just as we do with our body, can have adverse effects. And just as how fitness requires quality recovery time, giving your mind uninterrupted rest from a particular activity restores our ability to direct our attention to it the next day.
3) Rest improves memory
Rest is essential to memory and cognitive function. Taking that coffee break after class can actually help you retain information you just learned. This is because the areas of our brain responsible for memory consolidation (the hippocampus and lateral occipital complex) replays and process recent experiences during downtime.
4) Rest helps us to not be a jerk
Burnout turned me into a massive jerk. I was not proud of it. From a neuroscientific perspective, fatigue reduces the glucose levels in our brain. This trumps the areas needed to process facial expressions and understand social dynamics. Rest therefore heals this process, improving our empathy for both others and ourselves.
💝 noteworthy
Book: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
This book balances theory, stories and actionable advice that looks to support modern day professionals. It definitely gave me a fresh perspective on how I approach knowledge-heavy work. And how to build a sustainable professional life without sacrificing my wellbeing and relationships.
😌 calm corner
TED Talk: Redefining Rest – Slowing Down to Speed Up
Bec Heinrich shares about how the disease of busyness corrodes our lives and why rest is critical for inspiring and sustainable leadership. Bec explores how rest transformed her life and leadership, and from her research, shares about the impact of rest on people’s performance.