Want to be More Productive at Work? Here’s Six Reasons to Take a Break.



Want to be More Productive at Work? Here’s Six Reasons to Take a Break.

Woman celebrating nature

 

It might seem counterintuitive that going away from your work for a break can actually make you more effective. In fact, an increase in productivity is just one of the benefits.

As neurodivergent people in the workplace, who love to get involved and give a lot of ourselves, we invariably end up with our time fully committed and perhaps with more than one role to contend with (think diversity leader, or mental health designated person, mother, father, child, team member, leader, etc) each with their consequent agendas to attend to throughout the course of just one day. We often have difficulty saying no to requests, and our divergent perspective on time can lead us down the path of getting overloaded and towards burnout.

I’ve seen it all too often; the clients who come to coaching overwhelmed and exhausted, on the verge of imminent collapse. They work from morning to night, spend long periods working evenings and weekends to “catch up” , yet no matter how many hours they put in, they haven’t reached that ideal place yet where they feel relaxed and in control – with a “mind like water” as David Allen describes, the well-known productivity guru and author of several great books on the subject of “Getting Things Done”.

Breaks help you rest

When I ask these clients , “So when did you last have a holiday? and by holiday I mean a time where you don’t monitor or answer emails, don’t respond to work-related communications, and definitely don’t log in to your devices to “catch – up!” “, typically the answer is many months and sometimes years in the past. Some of them have yet to use their Out of Office function on their emails. 

“And when did you last have some time to yourself to do something just for you that’s nothing to do with work?“ “Ermmm…”

It’s OK to be enthused by your work, it absolutely is. However, what I frequently hear is that although someone may be plugged in to their devices, their brain has gone elsewhere, and the time and effort they expend trying to accomplish tasks is not actually that productive. They get distracted, may spend time scrolling on their devices instead, and find it hard to sit and focus on that one piece of work they need to get done. Even when you don’t want to rest, your brain will find a way. Cat pictures, anyone?

Breaks replenish dopamine levels and raise productivity

When we have ADHD, we can have challenges with maintaining focus. It is possible to hyperfocus on something we are really interested in, however when we are tired and constantly bombarded with interruptions and more and more work coming in, it’s a lot harder to focus in any way. 

One method that has served many with ADHD well is the 15 – 20 minute rule.

What you do is to divide your work into handy chunks of no more than 15 – 20 minutes, set an alarm for the stop time and then dive in. The ADHD brain thrives on sprints rather than marathons. The very thought of working for a stretch of several hours without a break is off-putting for many of the clients I coach. Once your alarm goes off, that’s your cue to get up, stretch and move your body, and get useful brain chemicals flowing such as dopamine and Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor ( BDNF for short).

Dopamine is one of the neurotransmitters/hormones implicated in ADHD, where there is usually a deficiency of dopamine in the circuits which support the Executive Functions. Dopamine helps us feel alert, motivated and engaged. Thankfully there are many ways to increase it. Medication is one such approach. Other methods include diet, exercise or movement, listening to music, spending time outside in nature, meditation, massage.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22588-dopamine-deficiency

As you might notice, virtually none of these methods seem to involve being chained to a computer or working 24/7 for 365 days per year. Interesting hmm?

Breaks help us learn

Ways to increase Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) a neurotransmitter and hormone, include exercise, meditation, deep sleep, and sunlight. Things that block BDNF include stress, sugar, carbs, and social isolation.

https://www.optimallivingdynamics.com/blog/21-proven-ways-to-increase-your-brains-growth-hormone#:

BDNF is the brain’s growth hormone, and assists in learning, memory, and emotional regulation.

https://www.banutascifresko.com/health-101/all-the-facts-on-bdnf-brain-derived-neurotrophic-factor/?lang=en

Breaks give fresh perspective

Apart from a break giving us a change physically from being seated at our screens, from the torrent of emails, from being tethered to meetings, breaks also provide mental nourishment.

Time for processing and taking a step back allows us to gain a sense of perspective. In the same way that we gain new outlooks on life whenever we travel or go on holiday, we get a chance to look at ourselves, our daily routines and habits ( if we have any!) from a different viewpoint.

For many, not having those opportunities was one of the aspects of the lockdowns which had a huge impact on wellbeing. Being stuck at home, with only those daily exercise breaks to look forward to meant we couldn’t get away from our lives and see another viewpoint. There was no variety. There was no upcoming holiday to look forward to and that felt heavy. 

Planning future breaks to look forward to can fill us with positive anticipation, even when the present situation may be challenging.

Breaks provide us with self-care

Breaks also give us the certain knowledge that we are taking care of ourselves. Moving our bodies has a host of benefits including increasing learning, having a positive effect on our heart health, breathing and oxygen levels. Listen to this podcast episode from Dr. Michael Mosley to find out how taking micro breaks from sitting can help lower our blood sugar and even increase our life expectancy. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011405

Breaks offer the chance to deepen relationships

Another benefit of breaks from working is the opportunity they give us to connect with others for personal not just work-related reasons.  Building and maintaining relationships takes time, and there are many ways we can help this along. 

Here are a few ideas:

Start a class in something that interests you, and you will meet like-minded people to relate to. 

Share a common interest with a friend and take a weekend workshop.

Call up a friend and go for a walk in nature together. 

See a film with friends or family and discuss it with them.

The benefits of taking breaks both big and small are many. They have the potential to support our brain health and productivity, maintain or boost physical and mental well-being, and deepen our relationships with others. 

So what are you waiting for? How many ways can you find to take a life-affirming break?

Lost something again? A fresh approach to keeping track of your stuff.

Lost something again? A fresh approach to keeping track of your stuff.

Are you a person who’s always losing things? There’s your keys, your phone, your purse, your glasses. They are never in the place where you think you last saw them, are they? Or where they ought to be, in that special basket by the door, or on that hook next to the stairs.

Why not? Well maybe you, like many others, are not fully paying attention when you put your keys down. Because you’re busy thinking about other things.

When you’re busy in your head thinking, it’s pretty much impossible for you to notice what you are doing with your hands or anything you’re carrying. For much of our days we are going through life on autopilot. We can eat, walk, and even drive whilst thinking about other things entirely. Some studies show that maybe as much as half of our lives are spent on autopilot, and that goes for everyone, not just people with ADHD. No wonder we lose our stuff!

So what’s the solution? Well, one sure way is to pull yourself out of autopilot at the right moments, so you can pay attention to where you are putting your keys.  Catching our own autopilot behaviour as it is happening is the secret.

You can do this by building up your ability to catch yourself acting on autopilot. Think of it like a skill that can be improved on with practice. You get better at it the more you do of it, right? Or a muscle that gets stronger the more you exercise it. If you are training to lift weights you don’t immediately start with the heaviest weight, do you? You’d end up in hospital with a strained tendon or worse. So you start small with a weight that’s well within your capabilities and work your way up.

Use plenty of help and support to make it easy on yourself at the beginning. A good starting point is to use some kind of external prompt at intervals throughout the day. This could be any signal that comes from outside yourself which can call your attention to what you’re doing in the moment.

For example, choose an activity you already do several times a day – such as making yourself a hot drink or having a glass of water – and link that to consciously noticing what you’re doing right then. This will begin to build up your “noticing” muscles. Maybe you’re the sort of person who wants something that will be sure to rouse you out of your autopilot trance. You could use bells, alarms or any kind of noise that will grab your attention. If you are a visually oriented person, other options might be to have post-its, sticky notes or coloured dots strategically placed in odd corners of your home. Put them somewhere you’re sure to see them.

You can set up timed or random occasions for catching autopilot throughout the day. Why not get creative with this; finding new ways to gently prod yourself to consciousness with an alerting stimulus? Try several until you find something that works. You may need to swap them around from time to time once your techniques lose their novelty and become an invisible part of the furniture, when you don’t respond to them anymore.

Once you’ve noticed you are in autopilot, then what? Simply being aware of what’s happening in the here and now, aware of both your internal thoughts and feelings, and of your surroundings, can give you some space. A welcome break from the chatter in your mind.

You can regularly interrupt the current of mindless inattention, by bringing your attention back to the present. I tell my coaching clients they can do this by practicing catching themselves in autopilot and bringing their attention to what’s happening in and around them. Then I encourage them to stop whatever they are doing for a few moments and bring their attention to their breath. This is a form of Mindfulness practice; a way of “taking control of our attention (self – regulation) with an attitude of openness, curiosity and acceptance.” (Bishop et.al. 2004 – in Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition.) 

This way you give yourself a chance to notice, then choose what you want to focus on. By checking in with yourself at regular intervals throughout the day, you’ll give yourself opportunities to ask yourself “What do I want to do right now? What could be next?”

Once you learn to catch your own autopilot behaviour, you’ll begin to notice things you didn’t notice before.

You can learn how to pull yourself out of autopilot and back into the present with:

  • Gradual practice building up bit by bit.
  • External prompts like a certain time of day.
  • Linking to things you do regularly like drinking a hot drink or glass of water.
  • Setting up timed or random occasions to draw attention to what you are doing.
  • Auditory prompts like bells or alarms, or custom noises.
  • Visual prompts like post- its, sticky notes or coloured dots.
  • Stopping what you’re doing and bringing your attention to your breath.

Before long you’ll also become more aware of the times when you’re putting your keys down. And begin to remember where to find them later.

Anna Schlapp, AACC, ACC, is a certified ADHD coach who specialises in creative solutions to triumph over the hurdles of ADHD. Anna helps those with challenges in organisation to co-create personalised blueprints for leading more amazing lives. Read more of Anna’s strategies for empowered productivity on her blog. To find out how Anna’s unique system can help you maximise your potential, ask about a complimentary coaching session.