Take a Break

I just am coming back from a 2-week vacation after having taken 1-week off 6-weeks prior. I was taking the break I didn’t get between switching jobs. It might sound wimpy, but I just needed time off. The reality is that I’ve been working harder the last several years than I did in my 20’s and early 30’s. I’m plain tired.

There’s a lot of evidence that our “go, go, go” lifestyles end up making us less effective in the long run. We stop seeing clearly. We aren’t our best selves. We are less productive. I know this all too well, even though I’m addicted to crossing items off my to do list.

I’ve recently started to read Arianna Huffington’s book “Thrive,” in which she references a lot of research that confirms this point. Here are just a few for now:

“According to a Harvard Medical School study, an astounding 96 percent of leaders said they felt burnt out.”

“Women in stressful jobs have a nearly 40 percent increased risk of heart disease, and a 60 percent greater risk of diabetes.”

“’Sleep deprivation negatively impacts our mood, our ability to focus, and our ability to access higher-level cognitive functions: the combination of these factors is what we generally refer to as mental performance,’ say Drs. Stuart Quan and Russell Sanna.”

Linda Stone, who previously worked at Apple and Microsoft, found that: “She would hold her breath for short bursts of time. So she dubbed it ‘email apnea.’” She found in a study that she conducted that 80 percent of participants experienced the same thing. (I have to say, I’d fall into that group!)

So, despite my workaholism, I am a firm believer in taking time off and disconnecting. Sometimes we really just need to take a break, and we’d be better for it.

Get inspired by this talk by Stegan Sagmeister at TED: Sagmeister suggests that by taking time off we become refreshed and thus will see anew.

Or, take Alice Waters, who structured the way her chefs are staffed at her acclaimed restaurant, Chez Panisse, so that they would have enough time to get inspired to be successful at their jobs. The main chefs of the kitchen in the primary restaurant downstairs are on staff for 6 months and then off for 6, while paid for the whole year. The chefs responsible for the Café upstairs are on 3 days and off 2, yet paid for 5, again for the purpose of having enough space to be truly inspired each day they come to work. According to Waters herself, “Part of my philosophy is to try to give employees a great quality of life. My guiding principle is to put myself in their place and ask what I would find desirable in a job…. I also feel that it's impossible for a chef to work productively six days a week. Chez Panisse chefs work three and are paid for five. This way they have a day to go to the market and get inspired to cook. It also gives them time to have dinners at home with their families."

Both Waters and Sagmeister have found a way to structure their businesses to support such business practices. More power to them!

So, what if we, too, could structure our time to allow for the appropriate “rest” and “pauses” to be our most inspired selves? Easier said than done, I know too well, but perhaps is a wonderful inspiration for us all to price ourselves at our value and with consideration for our well-being.

One thing to consider when planning these breaks is how much to plan vs. how much to allow flexibility and spontaneity. While spontaneity has its place, planning is not such a killjoy after all. Shawn Anchor, founder of GoodThink (a positive psychology consulting firm), and Michelle Gielan, a researcher with the Institute of Applied Positive Research, found in their study that travel related stress can negate the benefits of the vacation itself. So, he advises to plan out the details, plan in advance, get further away (I’d say from our devices; it was so nice not to have a computer with me for over a week and to barely check email), and to benefit from a knowledgeable guide.

For those who can’t afford to take a long break or to take advantage of this guidance, we need to find small ways to take these breaks and find space for ourselves. A new movement, which Huffington is championing with others, is centered around the idea of The Third Metric, which suggests that success is not just about power and money, but also about well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving. Perhaps these concepts can be the start of some guidelines around which we can find such relief.

The  Insight: We all need to take breaks—small and at times long. And, spontaneity in travel isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Planning can make sure that your break/vacation is actually as restful as you had hoped.

Sources:

Anchor, Shawn. “When a Vacation Reduces Stress—And When It Doesn’t,” Harvard Business Review, February 14, 2014.

Tirella, Joseph V. “Alice Waters: My startup story,” CNN.com, August 28, 2009.