Why Taking A Break Is So Important.

Six months into the ‘shelter in place’ work from home scenario and I’m starting to see people buckle under the pressure.  But why is that and where is all this extra pressure coming from anyway?  I get it that, our jobs aside, there’s a lot of stress and even fear associated with the uncertainty that the global pandemic has caused.  Many have also assumed extra burdens—the homeschooling of their children as an example or the care of other loved ones.

But there’s something else.  People are overworked.  What it sounds like is ‘I’m overwhelmed’, ‘I’m sinking’, ‘I can’t do this’, ‘I’m out of control’.  What it looks like is fatigue, depression, desperation, resignation. 

Why is that though?  Is there more work now?  Are organizations asking their employees to do more?  Sure there is some of that, but from what I’m seeing, that doesn’t seem to be the bulk of the issue.  The real issue seems to be related to the fact that there are no built in ‘breaks’ anymore that allow people to rest, renew and recharge. 

So let’s talk about that for a minute—this notion of ‘recharging’.  There are a lot of models out there around ‘energy levels’ and how that relates to productivity.  My former employer used a similar ‘feeling model’ to do the same.  These models describe the fact that the higher your energy level or the more ‘positive’ you feel, the better your decisions and the more productive you are.  They also concede that your energy and mood levels go up and down throughout the day.  They describe a ‘line’ that, once you fall below, your decisions can become impaired, your productivity compromised.  The more time you can spend above the line therefore, the more effective you are—often described as Peak Performance.  They also all agree that THE ONLY WAY to move from a compromised state—low energy, negative feelings—is to rest, renew and recharge. 

So let that sink in. 

‘I start my day with high energy, high levels of ‘positive’ thoughts—I’m determined, optimistic.  Throughout the day my energy is going to naturally wane.  I’ll likely encounter additional challenges and/or pushback from stakeholders as the day progresses which will have an impact on my positive thinking—I start feeling more stressed, irritable, not as confident as I was this morning.’

Translating that into ‘productivity & effectiveness’—let me know if this sounds familiar. 

‘I get a lot done first thing in the morning and I’m confident in my decisions.  As the day wears on, the weight of new challenges and pushback starts to get to me.  I start to spin my wheels and second guess my decisions.’

This is a normal day for many of us.  Without intervention, it can devolve into increasingly worse states—stress and second guessing becomes despair and resignation.  Our productivity and effectiveness erodes with it.  Remember, THE ONLY WAY to move from a compromised state—low energy, negative feelings—is to rest, renew and recharge. 

OK so back to the original question—why does it seem worse now? 

I recently attended a leadership workshop focused on the art of coaching.  One of the participants brought up the topic of feeling overwhelmed in this new ‘work from home’ environment.  They pointed to the fact that, in the office there were ‘built in breaks’—breaks that frankly I had never thought about before.  Things like walking outside from one building to the next to your next meeting, leaving the office with a colleague or on your own to go grab lunch.  ‘There were boundaries back then,’ I started to reflect—we arrived at the office a certain time and left at a certain time.  They didn’t seem like boundaries at the time, but during that long commute home I was relaxing by listening to a True Crime podcast; I was enjoying an extra large bag of peanut M&M’s while I people-watched at the airport.    

We’ve lost the commute, but now instead of arriving at the office at 8:00 a.m., we’re digging into emails at 6:15 a.m.  We forget about breaks, take a call while we grab an apple for lunch, and the next thing we know it’s 6:30 p.m.  Speaking for myself, if my Peak Performance is defined by my energy level and ‘positive’ thinking, then I dip below the line at about 8:45 a.m. each day—that’s the first time I typically ignore my hunger pains and have trouble focusing on what a colleague or client is saying.  And since I never stop to rest and renew, I never recover.  So in terms of Peak Performance, I guess I’m there for about 2.5 hours a day now—for me, that’s a step backwards.      

Take A Break.

So in addition to feeling overwhelmed, now it turns out that many of us are also less effective since we’re spending less time in Peak Performance each day.  But the models say we have CONTROL.  We don’t always have control of the situations that come our way, but we have control over the way we are reacting to it.  We control the way we are reacting to it by having control over our energy and how we are feeling emotionally.  We control that by first recognizing that we’re slipping below the line and then ‘intervening’.  We intervene by stopping to rest, renew and recharge—we Take A Break. 

We take a ‘real’ break, one that allows us to separate ourselves, to rest and recharge physically.  What that looks like is unique to everyone.  Remember, THE ONLY WAY to move back into a state of Peak Performance once we’ve slipped below the line or feel ourselves slipping, is to rest, renew and recharge.  Taking periodic breaks allows us to recover and spend more time in Peak Performance throughout the day—making us more productive, more effective. 

For me what I’ve realized is that Taking a Break isn’t a luxury, it’s a critical element to the day if I’m going to be effective.