Feeling stuck? Taking a break is potentially the most productive thing you can do

Feeling stuck? Taking a break is potentially the most productive thing you can do

The importance of taking a break after a long day, or allowing yourself to rest if you don’t have the energy to do anything, isn’t a concept new to mankind. People as well as companies alike all agree on the necessity of taking a break and genuinely encourage you to take them seriously. Work-life-balance, they say, is the key to a happy life. Agreed. But how exactly does a balanced life look like?

I know that I hadn’t figured this one out for myself yet. I mean, how long is a break supposed to last? What does it mean to take one? Is it a two-week vacation on a secluded island (it better be) or just the act of pouring yourself a cup of coffee and sitting on the couch for a good half an hour.

While the idea of taking two weeks off every time you catch yourself longing for a rest does sound appealing, it probably isn’t the most sustainable and realistic way of self-care for most people. Which brings us back to square one. Define a break. The Oxford Dictionary defines a break as “a short period of time when you stop what you are doing and rest, eat, etc.” . While this is short and concise, one thing stood out to me. This definition implies that taking a break is supposed to be a short thing. Eat your plate and hop back on whatever productive thing it was you left behind.

If I reflect on my every day life, I did of course take breaks. Some were as short as eating a meal, some would be an extended weekend trip. All of them were highly welcome. While there’s probably a collective agreement on how to spend the short, physically focused breaks (after all, we all need food and sleep to function), the desired frequency, the length as well as the actual activity of any other break you take for yourself is very personal. No one can tell you how to live your life or spend your breaks (thank God).

My breaks would often entail a walk in nature, going to the gym or doing a yoga class, meeting up with friends or family or cooking myself a nice meal.

And that worked just fine until it didn’t.

My quick 15-min morning yoga routine that once worked wonders to start the day energized and motivated suddenly had no lasting effect anymore. As soon as I would curl up my yoga mat, my mind would start racing again. “Did I rely to that e-mail?”, “Did I prepare for the meeting?”, “Fuck, was that due today?” etc.

I noticed that I hadn’t changed much when it came to my breaks, however, it did sense an overall decline in my mental health - and that felt scary. I couldn’t understand why the same actions didn’t have the same, desired outcome. While I did feel a relief during my breaks most of the time, I would notice how it got steadily harder for me to remain in that relaxed state after I finished whatever break I took for myself.

Taking a break shouldn’t simply be a way to recharge your batteries, only for you to jump back into the haze, that made you feel exhausted in the first place. Also, if you realize that said battery dies on a more rapid level, then, well, that’s your body trying to communicate.

So, I tried to look at my declining battery-life-situation from a different perspective. What if the effectiveness of the breaks aren’t the issue, but instead the tasks that are prompting me to take a break in the first place. If you happen to have a job or are at least required to work a solid few hours during the day, this activity/employment however you want to call it will take up most of your day. It therefore makes sense to take a closer look at that aspect of your everyday life.

I noticed that the work-to-pleasure ratio got out of balance. I would spend my day with increasingly more things that didn’t fill my cup or sparked a feeling of fulfilment, and ended up too occupied with things I had to get done before the end of the day.

The solution to this? Simple.

If you talk to friends, family or your therapist you’ll likely to get a similar answer. Just do more of what you love. Ugh. I knoooow.

We know time is not an issue - on paper. You’ll hear things like “If you really want it, you’ll find time for it.” or “not having enough time is no excuse. You also spend time on YouTube watching videos, when instead you could be working on that business you dreamt about.”

That’s fair. It’s valid and quite frankly, that reasoning made me feel even worse about myself.

Yes, I am guilty of watching videos on YouTube after work and just relax. And yes, I could decide not do it. But here’s something a lot of people miss. If you occupy yourself too much with things that drain you, the battery recharging period (aka for me the YouTube binging-phase) would get longer over time, too.

Before I actually decided to pull the plug and go for that trip, I would constantly guilt-trip myself over not going for what interests me during my free time. The truth is, I was too tired, and I wouldn’t allow myself to admit it.

I know that sounds like a lame excuse, but it proved to be true for me. I couldn’t bring up the mental capacity to learn a new skill or even show a longer-lasting interest in something because my mind was just too drained from whatever other thing that was occupying me. My creativity was virtually non-existent. Although I did have a few solid attempts and tried to start new things, the resilience and consistency that these new endeavors would require me to bring to the table just wasn’t present.

I never wanted to turn into that person that would constantly talk about stuff but never actually get things done. At one point I realized, though, I became exactly that.

They say the realization is the first stop to healing. Cool. What now?

As adults, we don’t have anyone telling us what to do. As much as we disliked going to school, it gave us structure and a clear path with a set goal. Granted, your stress-levels would reach new highs when trying to make it through a semester, but you knew it was for a reason. Kinda.

When you reach your adult life, however, this feeling of purpose gets challenged a lot. After all, there’s no predefined timeline to do and/or accomplish anything. In short, you can just change things, once you feel like this isn’t for you anymore. As liberating as this may sound, it can also get overwhelming.

I was constantly debating if I’m just being overdramatic and needed to push through, or if I should pay more attention to this declining battery-life-situation.

Once you get sucked up too much, you’ll find it hard to look at your own situation from a distance or have any comparable situations that allow you to objectively look into this. And this is so crucial.

Distancing yourself from your situation, proved to be a very effective method to re-evaluate things. Of course, you can summarize this by saying; If you’re feeling stuck, just leave.

I’m trying not to over-simplify here, though. Lol.

As for me, it prompted me to go on that trip eventually, as I realized, I wouldn’t get anywhere without giving myself the time to breathe, look at my situation from a distance and allow myself the time and space to actually figure out why my battery was leaking. I believe in the importance of taking breaks, and I now recognize how important they are to actually move along with your life.

In short: Listen to your body. Sometimes there’s an underlying message buried under the simple request to just take a break.