It’s 4 pm. Where is your attention focused?
One of the most common “problems” that my clients ask me to help them solve is the mid-afternoon “dip” time.
The Mid-Afternoon Dip
Perhaps you’re familiar with it:
That time in the mid-to-late afternoon when your focus starts to wane and you struggle to work effectively, especially if it’s a cognitive task.
Perhaps when that time comes around you find your mind wandering or drifting off. Maybe you notice that you’re more easily pulled away to distractions like social media or surfing the web.
No matter how hard you try to discipline yourself, you can’t seem to maintain your focus on the task in front of you.
Clients often present this problem as a personal failing on their part. They judge themselves as not being “productive” enough. They fret about how they are “wasting time.”
They are desperate for advice and hacks on how to “push through” this to “be more productive.”
My Counter-Cultural Advice
My response often surprises them.
You don’t push through it. You recognize that this is your dip time and you walk away.
Most clients respond to this guidance with a fair amount of resistance, because it flies in the face of traditional productivity advice.
We are so conditioned by “hustle culture” and “productivity culture” that we should be maximizing and optimizing every waking hour, that when we struggle to maintain focus we may view it as a personal failing.
But this conditioned belief ignores the fundamentals of human biology.
As much as we would like to believe that the brain can maintain its focus indefinitely, that’s simply not the reality of how the brain works.
The brain is a muscle.
As such, the fundamental principles of strength training and physical exercise apply.
3 Levels of Rest in a Physical Exercise Program
If you spend any time exercising or reading about exercise, you’ll notice that experts on physical fitness recommend incorporating rest.
A smartly-designed physical program incorporates rest on at least three levels:
(1) The Macro Level: Within the Season
As part of a larger season of a program, you might have a “deload” week during which you lift lighter. Or it might be a season of lighter training as part of a seasonal cycle, like a sports off-season.
(2) The Mid Level: Within the Cycle
In any week, you will have days of lighter workouts or active recovery after intense workouts, to give the muscles worked a rest.
(3) The Micro Level: Within the Workout
Within any workout, you will have short periods of rest between sets or rounds.
Most people have realized the need for the macro and mid-level rest periods, but overlook the importance of the micro-level rest.
Without those short breaks during a workout, the muscles can’t be taxed to their fullest capacity. It’s the micro-breaks that strengthen our resilience and our endurance: our ability to recover and keep going.
When we taxing the muscles to almost-full fatigue and then pick up again after a short break, the muscles have new life. And we strengthen our ability to keep going.
Without these breaks, the work we put in is wasted: we overtax the muscles and they don’t grow.
In fact, we’re more likely to develop injuries.
Your Brain is a Muscle. Treat it Like One.
This principle also applies to the brain. The brain is a muscle. Like the other muscles in your body, it needs times to rest.
In fact, the brain needs even more time to rest, because it uses approximately 20 percent of the body’s energy even when we are physically and cognitively resting.
Pushing it to focus single-mindedly on one task for “as long as it takes to complete that task” is a recipe for burnout.
The Body and Brain Have Inherent Cycles
Although we often compare ourselves to machines, human beings are not linear. We are part of nature, and like the rest of nature, we operate on cycles, or rhythms.
The circadian rhythm, which governs our overall energy, cycles throughout a 24-hour period. You have hours in which you have more energy and focus, and hours during which you have less energy and focus.
This is simple biology. You can’t rewire, push through, or override it — at least not without consequences.
In addition to the 24-hour cycle of the circadian rhythm, our brains cycle from highest attention to lowest attention approximately every 90 minutes, in what’s known as the ultradian rhythm.
Your Brain Needs Breaks
The amount of time we can focus might depend on the task, but regardless of whether it’s 45 minutes or 120 minutes, everyone who has studied this agrees: your brain can’t focus indefinitely. It needs breaks.
In an article for the Harvard Business Review, Srini Pillay explains that
Excessive focus exhausts the focus circuits in your brain. It can drain your energy and make you lose self-control. This energy drain can also make you more impulsive and less helpful. As a result, decisions are poorly thought-out, and you become less collaborative…..
The brain operates optimally when it toggles between focus and unfocus, allowing you to develop resilience, enhance creativity, and make better decisions too.
The Consequences of Ignoring Brain Rest
Your mid-afternoon dip isn’t a failing of willpower. It’s a function of biology.
Just like ignoring the body’s need for physical rest leaves us more susceptible to injury, ignoring our brain’s rhythms puts us at risk for longer periods of decreased attention and focus, as well as burnout.
Learning how to respect work with your brain can give you the boost of productivity you desire in a more sustainable way.
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