BRAIN REST: Why You Need It
Do you ever catch yourself thinking these things? My mind is tired. I don’t feel like thinking. I don’t feel like working. I don’t feel like doing anything…
Do you ever have those times when no matter how hard you want to push yourself to complete a task or do the next project, you simply can’t seem to think? You want to do absolutely nothing.
Is it possible that maybe your brain is telling you something?
This month we’re looking at the topic: rest. Unfortunately, it’s something we rarely discuss, particularly in America (where activity and productivity is considered the consummate accomplishment). USA Today reports, “by law, every country in the European Union has at least four work weeks of paid vacation. Austria, which guarantees workers the most time off, has a legal minimum of 22 paid vacation days and 13 paid holidays each year. The average private sector U.S. worker receives 16 paid vacation days and holidays.”
We often realize our bodies need rest, but do we realize our brain itself needs rest? An article by Scientific America quotes essayist Tim Kreider in his New York Times essay, “Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets.” He goes on to explain, “the space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration—it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.”
The One who created us, not only gave us instructions about rest but exemplified how important it is. We read, “For six days work is to be done, but the seventh day is a day of Sabbath rest, holy to the Lord. It will be a sign…forever, for six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.”
The article goes on to explain that our brain contains something recently named, Default Mode Network (DMN). It is a “mysterious and complex circuit” network that jumps into action when you rest, take downtime, or daydream. It uses downtime to accomplish a wealth of tasks the brain desperately needs. Here’s what takes place when you rest.
The brain:
- Makes sense of what was recently learned.
- Consolidates recently accumulated data while memorizing the most important aspects.
- Rehearses recently learned skills.
- Replays the day’s conversations with others to identify blunders and rewrite these so as to learn from them for the future.
- Creates fictional dialogue to stand up against someone who opposes us, so we say the things internally we’d like to say, reaping satisfaction.
- Shuffles through half-finished projects needing completion.
- Mulls over unsatisfying aspects of our lives searching for solutions.
- Relives childhood events to consider hypothetical outcomes.
- Conducts a moral performance review, questioning how we treated others recently.
- Creates the story of ourselves, by dipping “its quill into our memories, sensory experiences, disappointments and desires so that it may continue writing this ongoing first-person narrative of our life,” states the Scientific America article.
So, the next time your brain tells you how tired you are and that you need to rest- Listen! Stop everything and take a break. Daydream for 10 minutes, go home for the afternoon, or take a week’s vacation. Give yourself permission to rest and be refreshed. Remember, it’s not an option, you need it. The alternative proves to be mental “burn out,” something very difficult to recover from quickly. It’s your choice. Take a guilt-free break and enjoy it.
