Rest, research tells us, isn’t just good for energy levels. It’s key for learning and knowledge retention and is an essential component of effective practice.
A Scientific American article looking at the latest studies on doing nothing even went so far as to declare that “many important mental processes seem to require what we call downtime and other forms of rest during the day. Downtime replenishes the brain’s stores of attention and motivation, encourages productivity and creativity, and is essential to both achieve our highest levels of performance and simply form stable memories in everyday life.”
But while the scientific consensus on the benefits of a healthful level of laziness is pretty clear, that doesn’t make switching off and kicking back any easier for tightly wound type-A professionals. How do you actually get yourself to take the sort of complete rest that will yield the maximum productivity benefit?