They crush it in the weight room or on the track and know better than to go back out the next day and do the same thing. You need to balance these high-octane workouts with low-intensity “rest days” so that the sore muscles can recover faster than if you were just relaxing on the couch. Same goes for your brain. Hustling 24/7 also turns it to a pulp. And it turns out that the best way to relax your brain is very similar to the active recovery techniques you use after the gym. That means they take a little bit of energy and a little bit of strategy.
Last year, a study published by scientists like Andrew Bennett, Ph.D., who is now in the Department of Management at Old Dominion University, found that even ten minutes of intense focus was enough to cause mild drowsiness and alertness and decrease strength. The good news is that breaks of only one to nine minutes allowed for a significant reboot. The better news is that fractures that occupied the brain – that involved active recovery – were more restful than those that didn’t. “Attention and focus are finite resources that need to be replenished on a regular basis,” says Bennett. “When you want to re-energize your brain, it helps to do something slightly stimulating.” Often times, he says.
That three-pound cerebral powerhouse between your ears needs restorative strategies throughout the day, not just the occasional one. Without it, you risk exhaustion, burnout, and a decrease in your cognitive firepower. Mental exhaustion makes you less efficient, more distractible, more irritable and more error-prone. Brain Drain also affects you physically, reducing stamina and performance in everyone from soccer players and boxers to swimmers and cyclists.
To feel more engaged and productive at work – and have enough mojo for the gym when you’re done – you need to know how to “do” mental active rest. Try some of these science-based tactics.
To help your brain recover, harness the power of the new
Bennett’s microbreak study confirmed a peculiarity of the brain that cognitive research has suggested for years: We are charged with new experiences, especially those that we enjoy. “New sights, sounds, smells, or activities can bring you back to life,” says Bennett. (Monotony could be one reason we all felt so jaded during the pandemic.) Interestingly, watching a funny video in the middle of the workday counts as a “novel experience” for your brain. Last year, researchers in Belgium showed that adding something new to the brain activates the pleasure chemical dopamine in mice, which encourages them to learn things faster. Our brains react to new things in such a way that you probably don’t need to do anything dramatic. In fact, in Bennett’s study, the people who took their breaks to watch Saturday Night Live clips had significantly more strength, alertness and less fatigue compared to those who did a relaxing activity like stretching or even meditating. “Humor is new – and novelty is a powerful way to re-energize your brain,” he says. And people enjoyed the clips more than stretching or meditating, which probably added to the restful effects of the new experience. (Also worth noting: watching a short clip to revive yourself in the middle of the work day is fundamentally different from numbing your mind with hours of passive viewing at night.)
Separate from work
When employees put their work aside and are not annoyed about unanswered e-mails or ponder their to-do lists in the evening, they feel more committed and happier at work the next morning, say researchers in Germany. Also known as “detachment”, cognitive distancing from work during the day can also give your brain a boost. You can break up in a number of ways, such as: E.g. search for a vacation rental on Airbnb or create a new workout playlist. In studies, detachment researchers sometimes instruct them to think about a hobby or pastime they enjoy. “Just stay away from anything that is stressful or cognitively demanding,” advises Adam Gazzaley, MD, Ph.D., neuroscientist at the University of California at San Francisco and co-author of The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High -Tech World. And don’t check emails! It can distract you from the task you’re doing, but it’s still work.
Eddie Guy
Switch to standard mode
Whether you’re writing a report, making sales pitches, or sketching plans for a building, your brain’s prefrontal cortex (PFC), which is responsible for work-related cognitive functions like focus and attention, is in go mode. But just as you need to avoid doing heavy leg exercises on consecutive days, taking a break from heavy lifting is also helpful for your PFC. To the rescue: your standard mode network (DMN) – or, as Srini Pillay, MD, author of Tinker, Dabble, Doodle, Try calls it, the “unfocused network” – the regions of the brain that are active when you are dreaming You again and let your mind wander. “When you work long distances, the brain tends to lose concentration, but if you incorporate periods of unfocusing into your day, you give yourself a chance to recover,” says Dr. Pillay.
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Daydreaming differs from distraction in that you let your mind wander instead of forcing it to think about something in particular. It doesn’t do nothing either – it’s more like creating a mental order and making room for a reset to take place. Get into your DMN by doing a routine activity – go for a walk, wash dishes, take a shower, or water your plants – which sets the stage for mind wandering since you don’t have to activate your prefrontal cortex. When thinking about uncomfortable work problems, try positive-constructive daydreaming, a version that requires a little more cognitive control, suggests Dr. Pillay before. Imagine a situation like running through the woods with your dog or walking along the beach, he says. Unlocking your unfocused network to play with not only reinvigorates you, it also encourages creativity, says Dr. Pillay. “It gives your brain the ability to create unconscious associations that can trigger aha moments. That’s why so many creative breakthroughs happen in the shower. ”
Get a dose of nature
“The work requires focused attention from top to bottom,” says Dr. Gazzaley. “It’s tedious because you are actively focusing and trying to suppress distractions.” But there is another type known as bottom-up attention, where you allow your mind to ponder over any thoughts that are spontaneous Pop up. “Giving your brain time to pay attention from the bottom up in the middle of a hectic day can help offset the load on the attention from the top down,” says Dr. Gazzaley. What is the best way to flip the switch from top to bottom? Try a touch of nature. “Bottom-up attention is ancient and driven by stimuli that you perceive with your senses, so nature is an ideal place to experience it,” he says. Stroll through a park for five minutes, look out the window and watch some trees blow in the wind, or watch the reflections in a puddle for a minute or two. “Bottom-up attention is relaxing and rejuvenating because you gently pull your mind away from your senses, while top-down attention requires pressure,” explains Dr. Gazzaley.
Turn off the light
It may not seem like an active recovery strategy, but your brain is busy when it appears to be offline. “Taking a nap gives your brain’s focus circuitry much-needed rest while other parts of the brain run at full blast,” says Dr. Pillay. Napping doesn’t just improve alertness; They also refresh elements of executive functions like working memory, which you rely on all day. “Only five to 15 minutes can restore your energy and give you one to three hours of clarity,” says Dr. Pillay. (We know it’s easier to work from home than in a traditional office.) The U.S. Army released their updated physical training manual last year, complete with a new section on naps that encourages soldiers to Use short naps to “restore” alertness and performance. ”Why not use the strategy on the labor battlefield?
This story originally appeared in the October 2021 issue of Men’s Health.
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source https://www.bisayanews.com/2021/09/29/recover-from-a-tough-workday/
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