A colleague once shared a Montana saying.
Question: How do you make cows move fast?
Answer: Slowly

It was one of the days. I was not succeeding in fitting life into the time available. Maybe I should have known that my jazzy new Adobe podcast editing software, designed to save me time, would exponentially increase the time it would take me to edit–at least while I was climbing a mountain known as “master new software.” I’m still panting.

I was standing at the sink trying to wash the dishes rapidly so I could return to my writing and other critical tasks on my agenda, when I heard the words, “Go slow.”

Slow? I challenged myself: why not. I was already hopelessly behind in my plans for the day. I remembered an exercise I had done in an improv theatre class in which the instructor asked us to slow all of our movements down. Each gesture we made or step we took, we were to do sloooowly.

I experimented, sticking my hand slowly into the hot water and swiping a sponge against the inside of a bowl, at half of my normal speed. Then I reduced my speed again. I almost stopped moving. I stood still as a stream of rinse water came out of the spigot like magic, bouncing off the sides of the bowl. I extended my arm a few inches at a time until I could safely nest the bowl in the drainer.  I took so…much…time.

What I discovered

The results were amazing. I started breathing more deeply. I began gazing around the kitchen with new interest. Ordinary objects caught my interest. I saw art where there had been none before, a beam of light on the counter; the texture of a basket, a streak on the window, a pillar of glasses, and the glistening of soap bubbles in the sink.

I enjoyed what I was doing.

Moving in slow time felt so different than my usual program of “let’s see how fast we can do this so I can get back to my real work.” I left the sink feeling refreshed by the work. What’s more, I felt that in moving slowly, I had shifted my relationship with time: I had gained time.

Since this first experiment, I have tried slowing down while walking a garden path, feeding the horses, and taking Riley the dog out for a poop. As I slow, I seem to break apart some habitual patterns and pay more attention to my surroundings.

What’s the big deal or isn’t this just mindfulness?

You may be shaking your head at my revelations, thinking that this is just another form of practicing presence or a modest experiment with mini-mindfulness. You’re right. But I wasn’t trying to be mindful, or spiritual, or present at all. I was just trying one simple thing in the midst of a crazy day:

Slowing way down.

The benefit of slowing is you can do it practically any time and anywhere, in the midst of the crazy parts of your day. You don’t need to save it for your meditation or use it to practice presence.

And you don’t have to relate it to your spiritual path or label it anything. You just do one thing: you…slow…down.

It doesn’t require a course, a guru and it’s free.

You’d need to exercise some care in high-velocity zones like Times Square or Grand Central Station in New York or Shinjuku Station in Tokyo where breaking with the rhythm of the crowds might be a bit risky. But maybe you could think “I’m just practicing slowness” when you find yourself on Seattle’s I-5 corridor moving at a tortoise-like pace. (Probably too advanced for me!)

If moving at half-speed doesn’t help you relax, move at quarter-speed. Move so slowly that your movement feels like art. Play with it. And keep washing the dishes, walking the path or feeding the animals.

Something might open up for you. Please experiment and then tell me about it.

Slooowly.

Last week, I received this letter from a dear friend:

Dear Sally,

I’m a wreck. How many times have I heard someone say, “On your deathbed, you won’t wish you spent more time at work.” But guess what? Today, I wish I could have even gotten to my work.  My new saying is “On my deathbed, I won’t wish that I had spent more time online with CenturyLink.”

You write often about prioritizing your creative work, but let me testify that it isn’t that easy. This was the day I set aside for my project, but then tech problems came up and consumed the whole f-ing day, excuse my French. Tech glitches appear to love a vacuum.

You don’t need all the details, but it started with lousy internet service and many calls for help from CenturyLink. Knowing it might be years before we got help, I decided to go to the library to upload a document. Then, returning to the office, my office computer kept crashing, so I called Apple. But the rep couldn’t help me reload my operating system because the Internet connection was too weak.  I hoped that I could still salvage my writing day in the afternoon, but …

I started my writing session by warming up with one short how-to video on YouTube (just one!) and aghhh discovered that my websites weren’t “secure” even though I had paid real money to secure them. My website hosting company said they needed to send an email to admin@mycompanyname.com to make the security work, but of course. I didn’t even own that email. I bit my lip, tried not to scream and set about to acquire that email address. Of course, Gmail was no help so I….[Insert expletive]…I could go on, but you get the drift. Nothing was resolved, I’m a mess, and I feel like I wasted the whole precious day I set aside.

Can you help?

Your friend,
Enraged

Dear Enraged,

I get it. It was one of those days you got bucked off of your plans. Just hold your horses a bit, and tomorrow you can get back into the saddle.

First of all, know that what just happened isn’t personal.

Remember that story about “how to boil a frog.” You don’t put the frog into boiling water–he’d jump out, but you put him in tepid water and then keep turning the temperature up. I’m seeing a lot of warm frogs these days, living overloaded, computer-dependent, technology-infused lives. We don’t notice how each new upgrade, extension, feature, or device we use turns up the heat just a bit.

But I don’t want to depress you. Let’s tackle the problem. It comes in two parts: you and you. First of all, we have to help you return you to some semblance of the loving, compassionate, balanced person you are. After that, we can figure out what to do differently in the future.

Part one: Here are a few ideas you can use to help you regain you.

Acknowledge the problem. Create your own 12-step program for technology-inflicted rage. Know that this isn’t just about you. Find some compassion for the rest of us frogs.

Breathe. Your sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) has kicked in. Tension is high. But you can support your parasympathetic nervous system with breathing and this will calm you down. Seems so basic but so important–even for five minutes.  Take some deep breaths and long, complete exhales. Let the breath expand and move within you. I won’t get fancy because you’re in emergency mode.

Break the spell. Don’t worry about being productive. First, we’ll need to break the grip of whatever monster has you in this agitated outside-of-yourself state. Sing, chant, massage your feet–anything that you know relaxes you (and gets you breathing). Meditate. Take a walk. Dance if you have energy. Or just sit on the couch and do absolutely nothing. Read a book that sends you into another world. Don’t come out until you start to relax.

Gratitude. Remember that technology has two edges: it creates miracles with so many opportunities to work, connect, collaborate and grow; it also consumes our time. Give thanks for the privilege of access. (Isn’t it silly that we get so irritated when our computers need ten extra seconds to reboot?)

Hug a pet. I’m big into pooch hugs these days. My new dog Riley generously allows me to hug him as much as I want; he even seems to like it. My cat occasionally returns my affection, and my horse allows me to breathe into her muzzle even though she isn’t sure why I am doing that. Breathing with an animal is the perfect antidote to computer-induced rage.

Part two: strategizing what to do going forward.

Without any judgment, how could you have protected your creative space a little better?

Protect your time/space. You set aside time to write, (good) but then you watched a short video (dangerous). Marketers are super proficient at dangling shiny objects before you and distracting your attention. And once you saw you had a problem with your website, did you have to immediately resolve it? I know, “you thought it was going to be quick.” But between us both, how often does that prove to be true?

Stop the action. Those technology glitches start snowballing and soon you’re facing an avalanche. You keep hoping that “just one more thing” will resolve the problem. But the real problem is you. You’re fried. Anger has aborted your thinking. Call “time out” when you feel yourself sliding down the mountain. Step away. Take a break. Do your breathing (above) and then reconsider whether to continue down the path that you’re on. It’s probably going nowhere.

Be vigilant about your priorities. Protect your creative space in your overstuffed life the way you’d protect a meeting you’ve scheduled. Exceptions allowed, but double check anything that threatens to pull you off your path. Maybe you want to guarantee yourself one hour of writing before you even peak at the Internet. .

Make lemonade. Sorry for the cliché, but there’s got to be some good coming out of what you experienced. Compassion for others? A funny story for your next party? A piece of writing? A blog post?

Spread kindness. It’s too easy to get upset with the people who, like pawns in a broken system, are trying to help us. When you do anything to acknowledge them or make their day lighter, you are sending a beam of light into the darkness. Call that your daily victory.

Start again. Tomorrow you have a new opportunity. Isn’t that fabulous? Plan now to go forth and create. And thanks for reaching out for help.  It’s ALWAYS easier for me to give advice when I’m not caught in the middle of things myself.

Who needs a break from work? I do. We all do, probably more than we know. But when should we take those breaks, and for how long, to keep our performance rolling during the day?

When you search online you’ll find a wealth of expert-sounding opinions, with references to a few core ideas that are repeated so often that you almost think they are true.

Should we follow the research on ultradian rhythms (see below) and time our work for 90 – 120 minutes followed by a 20-minute break? Or should we heed the research that says the sweet spot for productivity is 52 minutes of work, followed by a 17-minute break?  Or should we stick to bursts of 25 minutes, using the popular Pomodoro Technique?

Let’s explore these ideas, after tipping our hat to science, (so politically endangered these days), to see what the research actually says.

Ninety minutes on/twenty minutes off

Personal energy guru and leadership consultant Tony Schwartz promotes the idea of improving performance by working with our daily ultradian rhythms of activity and rest. (Ultradian means a recurring cycle of time that repeats over a 24 hour period.) Nathan Kleitman, a physiologist and sleep researcher, did groundbreaking research uncovering the “Basic rest-activity cycle” (BRAC) of 90-120 minutes that occurs when we sleep and, it appears, when we’re awake. Could working in 90-minute cycles during the day help improve performance? Apparently Kleitman thought so, as Schwartz does today. But the research isn’t so clear.

Attempts to scientifically test Kleitman’s idea that working for 90-minutes and then resting improves productivity haven’t panned out. The US Army even commissioned a study in the 1990’s to look at the connection between the rhythms and performance, but the findings weren’t strong.

That doesn’t mean the idea of syncing your work with your ultradian rhythms isn’t intriguing, and the benefits of taking more planful breaks in today’s constantly driven work cultures make sense. Recent research conducted by faculty of the Wharton School of Business found that compliance with safety regulations increases when people take real breaks between shifts, a finding that’s relevant for today’s over-taxed physicians who might otherwise forget to wash their hands.

So taking creative, renewing, or as-needed breaks, without purporting that the magic 90-minute number for enhancing performance has been scientifically proven, seems to make good sense.

Fifty-two minutes on and seventeen minutes off

A couple of years ago a huge media buzz started when DeskTime, a firm that produces employee productivity tracking software, produced research done by the firm showing that the “most productive people work for 52 minutes, then break for 17 minutes.” DeskTime, with access to millions of records that monitored employees’ productivity while at the computer, isolated the “top 10% most productive employees” and analyzed their behavior. The 52/17 rule emerged and swept the Internet like a new gospel.

A bit skeptical, I had to challenge the source of this oft-cited research: a firm in the biz of selling productivity tracking software. They define “productive employees” as “those who had the highest ratio of using ‘productive’ [software] applications for their line of work (e.g., a marketer would indicate social platforms like Facebook as ‘productive’.)”

Did you understand that slog of words? Productivity becomes a function of what DeskTime can measure–”productive” software tied to an employee’s field–not a reflection of creative activity. (Will I be more productive using Microsoft Word to do multiple 52-minute segments or just brain-dead?)

Science aside, I kind of like the idea of working in fifty-two minute time blocks. It fits my rhythm although I doubt I’ll be diminished if I work fifty-three.

Pomodoro and the twenty-five-minute window.

Years ago, the Pomodoro technique was created by an Italian software designer and time management aficionado Anthony Cirillo and popularized all over the world. The system uses a little tomato-shaped kitchen timer (hence the name Pomodoro – Italian for tomato), to measure work that is done in timed twenty-five minute stretches, followed by a short break. The twenty-five minutes can be a motivation to get going on a project, or a way of tracking your work. Many swear by the method. Cirillo did not base his concept on research; it came out of some interesting assumptions he made. Nothing to dispute here – if twenty-five minutes is a good frame for a spurt of work for you, great!

But if the tomato timer goes off and you want to stay put for another ten minutes, nobody dies.

Here’s my synopsis, based on what I’ve distilled about when to take a break:

• Our bodies do follow rhythms during the day and it is useful to pay attention to them.
• We tend to barrel through our day ignoring our body’s need to rest.
• Resting, taking breaks, and enjoying time-off are undervalued in many workplaces.
• Paying attention to cycles of energy is useful–but prescribing an ideal amount of time to work isn’t.  (Suggesting-good; prescribing-not.)
• If we don’t periodically shift gears by taking breaks, our ability to focus is likely to decline.
• When we break, our decision about how long to take, and what to do should reflect the self-knowing we all need to develop out of listening to our bodies, paying attention to our energy, and noticing our focus.

My Suggestion: Know YOUR rhythm.

Different folks will be productive in different ways.

With a tip of the hat to Aesop and his fables, my husband and I have a tortoise and hare contest going on between our different rhythms of work. I am more hare-like, jumping into a project and working in a burst of activity before signing off. I can be very productive, but push me to keep working beyond a certain point and I fall apart. (Either 25 or 52 minutes could work for me.)

My husband, on the other hand, may delay jumping into a project a bit too much for my taste, but when he commits to a piece of work, his concentration and perseverance astound me. He can easily work for at least a two-hour block of work, interrupted only by an occasional bathroom break.

(I’m not sure which one of us would have won the race…)

Fit your breaks to your needs

When to take a break? When you need one. Your body and your mind will tell you.

How long a break? Rather than assigning a prescribed number of minutes to an optimal break (e.g. seventeen minutes), focus on the quality of that break and how it renews your creative spirit.

Sometimes five minutes of stretching may be all you need. Or occasionally, after a lengthy stretch of pressured work, knock off for a day (or if you have to show up at work, do stuff that’s really easy on the mind).

After a stint of mentally taxing work, I’ll probably need to move my body. But, if my work is physical, sitting at a desk is the break I need to physically recover (I’ve been weeding a lot recently–it makes desk work look enjoyable!)

When my work is highly creative, I like breaks that feel brainless and ask nothing of me. I’m experimenting with staring into space or doing yoga nidra (sleep meditation) when I’ve hit a moment of creative exhaustion.

Bottom line: Breaks aren’t just about improved performance, alluring as that might be. Breaks are also about reviving our spirits and remembering the creative, whole people we are.

Despite an otherwise admirable record in my first years in school, I always failed one activity: rest time. Having to lie on a little mat, attempting to be quiet and stay still, was torture.

I didn’t do much better with my next foray into rest time when, at summer camp, we’d be confined to our bunks for forty-five minutes, restricted from doing the fun stuff like swimming or making little objects out of popsicle sticks to give to mother for her birthday, hoping for a delighted, if somewhat staged, display of enthusiasm.

(It was not until I was a camp counselor myself that I understood that rest time was created for counselors, offering a short oasis in their otherwise crazed days.)

Bottom line: I have no creds to talk about rest.

My husband and cat love taking naps together. Which proves that we all come from different species. For me, napping during the afternoon is tantamount to surrender (never!) in the great war of getting things done. I refuse to collapse on the job! (Plus I find it very hard to wake up.)

A growing exhaustion

Yet, I am one of the millions of women beyond a certain age (this may apply to men but I’m not an expert here) who are chronically exhausted. Many suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, a devastating if poorly understood condition in which the body says, “no go” to most activity.

The National Sleep Foundation reported, in 2014, that a whopping 24 percent of women surveyed said they had not felt well-rested for the past seven days. Studies suggest that the high rates of depression among women may correlate with feeling chronically “on” and not well-rested. (I think they might also correlate with the current imbroglio in Washington, D.C. and decline in national civility, but that is as yet unproven.)

Our need for sleep

Having been sleep-deprived for many years, Arianna Huffington is on a roll to promote the benefits of sleep, as she tells you in her book titled, The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time. She has definitely caught the national ear, arguing that our culture’s condescending attitude toward the need for sleep is contributing to faulty decision-making and compromised health. She recommends a set of sleep practices that may make it easier to go to sleep and stay asleep.

But sleep is one thing, rest is another, and it is possible to get sleep without feeling rested, a fact a lot of us, unfortunately, can attest to.

How to get Rest 

Enter two authors with strong perspectives on the importance of rest. Author Marilyn Paul describes the benefits of taking a Shabbat (Sabbath or rest day), as she first experienced it through her Jewish faith. She makes a powerful case for the importance of taking a day of rest weekly. Karen Brody offers a daily practice that can guide us to attain a much deeper level of rest.

Create an Oasis in Time

Answering the skeptics who fear that they would be less productive or efficient if they were to step off the line for one day a week, Marilyn Paul argues that the practice of stopping for a day each week will make you more productive.

Marilyn (We were friends in grad school) learned the need for rest the hard way. Confronted with the over-adrenalized pace and pressure of being a grad student at Yale, she became ill and exhausted. It wasn’t until she discovered the benefits of taking a weekly Shabbat that her health turned around. She has continued this practice for many years, and wrote her book An Oasis in Time: How a Day of Rest Can Save Your Life to bring the benefits of a rest day to her colleagues in the secular world.

As a professional coach, she sees the toll exhaustion takes on many of her almost burned-out clients, wreaking havoc on their family life and health. She’s passionate about the benefits of declaring STOP and turning off otherwise productive activities once a week. (Making meals with friends, walks and family time are still OK.)

Although Marilyn understands that not everyone may be ready to try a full day of rest, between you and me, she’s not willing to stop recommending the idea of a whole day off. But we all need to start where we can! (You can learn more in my upcoming podcast interview with her.)

Dare to Rest

Karen Brody takes a different approach, wanting people to build a practice of rest, one meditation session at a time. She notes that a lot of the things we do in order to chill, such as watching television or reading a book, are still activities, not rest. She writes, “To rest is to surrender from the active, the goals, and the will to achieve something.” While our relaxation activities may be good for us and fun, we still need the benefits of rest.

As a burned-out professional with young children, she stumbled into the practice of Yoga Nidra, a “sleep-based, conscious relaxation, and meditation technique,” and finally found the deep rest she was craving. By doing twenty to forty minutes of Yoga Nidra, a practice done lying down with no yoga postures, Brody discovered a path to rest that can also awaken our consciousness and return us to a sense of our selves.

Brody now teaches Yoga Nidra. Her book, Daring to Rest: Reclaim Your Power with Yoga Nidra Rest Meditation, describes the yogic practices and offers text for the meditations that are the backbone of the technique. Through the meditations, we are offered to drop into a deep level of rest, as we are guided to drop into different subtle levels of consciousness without trying to do anything.

If she could have bottled the sense of deep relaxation and refreshment she described, I would have bought it immediately. Unfortunately, like most things good in life, Yoga Nidra takes practice; her book invites the reader into a forty-day program that can be done at home.

Now the truth

I intend to try both. But the truth is, as a rest-dropout, I need to take my recovery one step at a time. When I used to try to take a rest day a week, a practice recommended by the spiritual group I was in, I got terrible, migraine-like headaches. A sure sign of addiction, one might say.

Currently, I’m taking recovery in really small increments: ten-minutes at a time.  I’m exploring how we might beneficially use our breaks, those unacknowledged ensemble players in the great drama of our lives. Research suggests that our bodies prefer to work in ninety-minute cycles, which says that every ninety minutes (give or take a little) we should be taking a break. Maybe if we learned to take breaks that stimulated our imagination, allowed us to relax, or refueled our intentions, we wouldn’t get so fried and frazzled during the day

I’m writing a book exploring this idea, tentatively called: The Ten Minute Miracle: Finding magic in small breaks. I hope to have it out this summer.

Taking breaks doesn’t mean we don’t still need a practice of rest. 

Which is why I’m bringing out my yoga mat and blankie, and thinking about my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Johnson, who wanted me to stop squirming. I’d love to tell her that yes, I am finally willing to lie down and rest.