Recharging - Rest Breaks

Practicing more than just physical rest breaks

The festive holidays are as good as any reminder that rest breaks are vital to our wellbeing, all of them—physical, mental, sensory, creative, emotional, social, and spiritual rests.

Whilst some might see themselves or others as procrastinating, it’s the mind’s response to sensory overload, emotional destress and/or just being overworked that is at play here. Here are some examples:

• Idealistic procrastination is a state where “everything needs to be perfect” and when we attach a certain precondition to a task.
• Avoidance procrastination is a protective mechanism and the desire to better control circumstances.
• Operational procrastination is a state when we are overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task or problem.

So, procrastination is the mind’s let's-have-a-break solution to certain cognitive conditions, not a problem by itself.

Since the atomic age, Western organisations are slowly moving from the Tyloristic paradigm of exclusively physical breaks to include other rest breaks. There had been some hiccups, e.g. President Reagan’s firing of 11,345 air traffic controllers in 1968 (mental rest breaks), but the trend is on the side of acknowledging all rest breaks as crucial to a high-performance workforce and worker’s wellbegin (e.g. 4-day work week).