In our always on and going world it can become very easy to think of each day like running a sprint from beginning to end. The challenge is that our bodies are not designed for that. Unlike your computer which can stay on 24/7, and run programs in the background even when you’ve stepped away, your body functions best on cycles of stress and rest.
The example that most people are familiar with is when you’re lifting weights to build strength and muscle. We all know that trainers encourage us to not lift heavily using the same muscles every day but to alternate days and include a day of rest for the muscles between workouts. Why is that? Because our muscles need a day to heal and rebuild in order to come back stronger.
Our energy works similarly, and that’s why incorporating more breaks for rest can actually increase your productivity! There have been numerous studies that confirm this, and it’s one of the common themes that I encounter when working with my high performing clients. According to research the longest period that we can effectively focus without a rest is generally 90-minutes, which means that adding in a 5-15 minute break every 90-min period actually works with your body’s natural rhythms and increases your ability to focus and be effective.
Many times, even if my clients know that taking more breaks would be beneficial, they can’t figure out what they would do during the breaks and end up just playing solitaire, checking Facebook, or eating & reading. While those are three reasonable options, I don’t think they always offer the best, most restful results. So, let me help you think creatively about what you could do with your brain break to improve your energy management.
10 Brain Break Ideas to Keep You Refreshed
1. Dance Break!!! – Yes, I’m starting big. Close your office door, turn on your favorite song, and just DANCE for 3 minutes. It will get your body and heart rate moving, help clear your mind, and bring even more energy to whatever you do next.
2. Stretch Break – You can find plenty of videos on Youtube with stretches or yoga that you can do at your desk or in your office. But, even if all you do is set the timer on your smart phone and just stretch whatever feels tired or tight for 3-5 minutes you will be surprised how much better you feel.
3. Walk Break– Get up and away from your desk and take a walk. Maybe it’s just a few laps around your office floor, or if the weather is cooperating then get OUT of the building and explore the area around your office building. Consider this your chance to be Lewis and Clark and get curious for 10-15 minutes about what’s happening in the world outside your work-land. Do this repeatedly day after day and try different directions and routes. You might uncover something cool and unexpected!
4. Green Break– Find a window that looks out over some green trees, grass, bushes or take a walk and just observe the greenery of the natural world around you. Or, worst case scenario, find a green wall to look at. In a study at the University of Munich, researchers found that exposure to the color green before a task boosts creativity. Just soak in the green for a while and allow your brain to rest and re-engage differently.
5. Meditation Break – Take a few minutes to intentionally calm and focus your mind. There is ever-growing research that meditation is a huge booster both for health and productivity, but many people are intimidated by the concept of having to sit in some uncomfortable position for lengthy periods of time. That’s not what meditation is about! In fact, one of my favorite new meditation helpers is an app called Buddhify 2.0 available for iPhone and Android. It offer a variety of situationally specific, short meditations that you can sprinkle throughout your day. It makes meditation while at work much less intimidating.
6. Breathing Break – Not quite ready for “proper meditation”? OK, then how about just taking a few deep breaths or focusing only on breathing for one minute. Just giving yourself permission to do nothing other than breathe for a minute will help you spin down just a little from your active day.
7. Tea Break – Did you know that green tea is an exceptionally healthy choice that has been connected to reducing cancer, diabetes, heart disease, IBD, Liver disease, and weight loss? What about just stepping away from your desk to rest and drink a cup of green tea?
8. State Shift Break – Need to change your mood or the energy in your space? OK, then choose a positive emotion that you’d rather be feeling right now: joy, peace, excitement, happiness. Stand up, step away from your desk, and close your eyes. Notice how easily you can remember a time when you felt that emotion. Drop back into that moment as if it were happening right now. How were you standing, how were you breathing, what were you seeing, hearing, and feeling. Amplify the experience, bring it up to a peak, then feel it soaking into your cells and your bones. Lock it into place, and hear it pop like tupperware. You can even anchor it by choosing a spot on your body (middle of your palm, base of a finger, hand on your heart) and intentionally touching that place and connecting the feeling to the anchor spot. Then, if you want to re-engage that feeling you can just touch that place again. (Repeat this one frequently to make the anchors even stronger.)
9. Nap Break– There is SO much research that suggests that taking a quick nap (10-26 minutes) in the late morning or early afternoon can dramatically improve your effectiveness for the rest of the day. Set your phone alarm to ensure you don’t sleep through the whole rest of the day, and give yourself permission to just close your eyes for a little while. I used to even sleep in my car in between appointments sometimes. It was a great restart.
10. Gratitude Break – Take a few minutes to soak in gratitude… you can write or just reflect on the list of things you have to be grateful for. Ever-increasing research is exploring the benefits of practicing gratitude, but personally I always think of the scene with Bing Crosby from White Christmas – Count Your Blessings instead of Sheep. It has a very tender place in my heart both because of the sentiment and because I sang it to my grandmother a couple weeks before she passed. It’s a moment and memory that I’m very grateful for. What are you grateful for?
There you go! 10 more ideas for what to do with your short brain breaks… and I bet that you could come up with a few more. Share your short brain break ideas in the comments below and let’s see exactly how creative we can be.
