Take a break, it's good for the mind [naps!]

A.C. Shilton, How to Tell If Your Brain Needs a Break, NYTimes, Feb. 3, 2022.

It’s 1:02 p.m. Do you know what your brain is doing?

If the answer is trawling the bowels of the internet instead of finishing those spreadsheets, it might be time to step away from your desk. Brain slumps are real, said Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine. And the antidote to this midafternoon mind sludge isn’t muddling through, no matter what hustle culture wants you to believe. It’s the opposite: You should take a break.

“We can’t expect to lift weights nonstop all day, and we can’t expect to use sustained focus and attention for extended periods of time, either,” said Dr. Mark, author of “Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity.” While your brain is not a muscle, the analogy is a good one, since staying focused requires our brains to burn energy, said Marta Sabariego, an assistant professor at Mount Holyoke College who studies attention and other goal directed behaviors.

But the most compelling reason for taking a brain break is that it may improve your ability to do quality work.

As always, there's more at the link.

Me, I like to play a couple of rounds of solitaire.

Oh! I forgot: "Few workers have the option to take a midday nap, but if you do, take it." YES! Mid-afternoon or even mid-morning, too. Naps are good.