Why Taking A Break Is Important
Author: Dylan Dumpangol
The idea of working hard and being determined is so ingrained within us that we naturally understand that this is what we should be doing on a day to day basis. Whether we act on it, of course is another question. It is definitely no surprise why, from the day we step foot into school, we are taught the value of hard work because working hard is synonymous with striving for success and why not? Success leads to income and with income comes stability.
For far too long, society has pushed us to our limits, telling each other that they should keep moving forward because diamonds are made under immense pressure aren’t they?
Contrary to popular beliefs, this article does not wish to shoot down the idea of hard work but it aims to highlight why taking it slow is not only a good thing but necessary for growth.
As a student, working towards a goal can be a very insightful yet daunting experience. For starters, you may be highly motivated to pursue your goals and yet ill equipped with the experience and resources to juggle it all at once. Also, for the most part, it is a time of second guessing the many things that you do simply because it is your first time doing it. Therefore the expectations of keeping it all together, composed, supplying yourself with knowledge to surpass exams, extra curriculars, relationships and at the same time maintaining that social life?
Yikes.. Stress may be an oversimplification!
An American psychologist, Herbert Freudenberger coined the term “burnout” in the 1970s. A burnout is described as a psychological syndrome which comes as a result of overwhelming exhaustion, stress and a feeling of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment. Some have also described these symptoms as a feeling of emptiness and inability to cope on a day to day. Although, many misconceive it to be a minor “in the moment” feeling, it is actually much more severe than many recognize. Instead of reaching a breaking point, many students struggle to push past and shrug off the feeling while they are already at a state of mental and physical exhaustion. This can be very harmful to an individual’s mental health and well-being.
Not convinced?
The CDC has shown through a study that the past four years physical overexertion has been the second leading cause of injury and illness which kept people from working. Moreover, The Harvard Medical School has also summarized that people who worked more than 55 hours a week has increased themselves to a risk of heart attack by 13 percent. They are also found to be susceptible to suffer a stroke by 33 percent. In fact, neglecting the fact that you are overworking, can lead to a shorter life span, which in hindsight could actually prevent you from achieving many of your life-long goals! The irony!
The solution?
To beat the burnout with a time-out! Give yourself a break to prioritize self-care and to set firm boundaries between work time and the time you need to kick back and relax. Practice self-compassion, because you don’t have to be perfect, it is really OK to take a break. Take time to un-think and to unwind from the constant exhaustion of everyday life.
While many seem to equate breaks and a complete halt of work as being unproductive and ineffective. Taking timely breaks can also propel you forward feeding your needs to re-calibrate, and reinvigorate the mind and body. There is a huge advantage to anybody willing to take time to understand where their place is in the world, what their ideals are and what their very own version of success really means to them. It is a fact that the average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those thoughts it was found that 80% were negative, and 95% were exactly the same repetitive thoughts as the day before. Therefore, I would like to iterate that taking warranted breaks are important and it is neither quitting nor is it giving up. In fact, it is rising above all these things and fulfilling the needs of the mind which works on a separate plane than that of our physical bodies.
All this becomes especially relevant now when feelings of hopelessness, ineffectiveness and stress of the unknown become commonplace in a new world torn by the freedoms robbed away from us. As students, amidst the online classes and inability to return to a normal academic year ahead, there is no better time to hit the pause button and remind one another that hope can be just as contagious. Therefore, it is important that we are able to declutter and compartmentalize our thoughts and feelings as;
“Taking a break can lead to breakthroughs.”
Allow yourself to take an evaluative stance to appreciate everything you have achieved thus far. Whether, it may be simply choosing to get out of bed in the morning or making difficult life cleansing decisions despite the pain. Congratulations! You did that yourself! Be proud! You deserve everything coming your way and more.
To end, Fleur Sakura Wöss the author of the book Innehalten (Pause for thought) once said that
“In our world we live mainly for the future, or we remember things that happened in the past. Pausing for thought is the space in between, so to speak — a space that is unplanned and unoccupied, where you can freely decide in that moment what you do. It’s always an exhilarating feeling to experience this kind of freedom and power.”
I wish you all the best and in these challenging times and to remember to always rest, recover, be kind to yourself and know that the bad times are temporary. You can get through anything if you p̶u̶t̶ y̶o̶u̶r̶ m̶i̶n̶d̶ t̶o̶ i̶t̶ give yourself a break every once in a while.