Give me a Break!

Taking a break is the most productive and clever action you can do to yourself.

Even if a nap can be seen as a lazy moment, or a disruptive and distractive break, I do like to take breaks. As if I take breaks as a routine. To break the routine. Two months ago I quit smoking for 3 weeks. Out of the blues. Two days ago I didn’t shower. And believe me that the shower after a non-shower day makes the shower even more pleasant. When I’m too focused on work, creative work, I often forget everything else, and how a break can be healthy and productive. When you’re too focused on something you’re doing, so focused that you don’t even realize that you’re becoming addicted to your own thoughts, it’s the best time for you to take a break. Take a nap. Go for a walk. Cook something. Read a random page of a random book on a different room or even outside. Get naked and go the roof. Water the plants and talk with them. Go out and stretch yourself. Call your oldest aunt and ask how is she.

Today I took a break from other works that I’m doing to write this post about taking a break, so I can go back to what I was doing with a refreshed mind.

It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you’re taking a break and do something that can distract you and give you some emotional distance of what you were doing in a so focused way.

A 20 minutes nap on the floor can be the best. Lie down on your back, straight, put your hands over your navel, close your eyes and allow yourself to turn off. Visualize your brain. Or follow the blood circulation visualizing it.

Taking a break can indeed give you the distance you need to come back to the work you were doing with a fresher mind. When you’re too focused you’re not having an emotional distance from what you’re doing. You need to go out from it. When you’re too focused you’re not paying attention to some details: you’re missing them. You’re not listening to your subconscious; you’re using your consciousness with all its filters and defenses. Get out of that mind’s comfort zone. If what you’re doing is writing, you can keep writing, but go out: for an hour change place and means. Take papers and pen and go outside and keep writing in a different environment. Your mind will register new details and will make your writing flow. Write something completely different. Write about how the grass grows from the soil’s point of view. Look down. Now look up. Maybe in a different direction for a while. But as soon as you go back to the place you were before it comes to the place whatever you were doing in a healthier way.

Taking a break can be much more productive than keep imposing yourself to be there until you finish the task. When you’re too focused you might get some anxiety even if you’re not aware of it. That’s the thing that blocks the most. Anxiety is the worst enemy of flowing and creativity. Focus on what you’re doing. Focus on the now. Enjoy and embrace it.

I said: enjoy it.

I said: embrace it.

When you’re too focused you need this break so you can enjoy the rest. Anxiety is what you have to stress out about the close future. Forget it. Don’t allow it to get installed on you. Click on “install later”. Or “remind me later”. And forget it. Embrace your now and your joy. Focus on what you’re doing, and give yourself a break. You deserve it as it will be needed for a better work. For a better result. Take a break to produce better. A break is the best thing to rise up your productivity. To increase your creativity. To a better understanding of your own skills. Earn the break. Enjoy it as much as you enjoy working.

Taking a break can be more productive than keep working non-stop. If you don’t stop eating, you’ll get health problems. You take breaks between meals. You sleep at night to take breaks of your days. Even the sun gives us breaks so we can enjoy the moonlight. And dark nights. We need breaks so we can enjoy more what we do. What we live for. Breaks can be a way for us to feel that we’re alive. They are recharging. And we do need them. More than anything else. Even if it’s just for us to disconnect, to recharge, to come back to life with more pleasure and clear mind.

Just go take a break.

You can even take a break whenever you feel you’re in the best moment of the creative process. It’s helpful.

Trust me.

And give me a break too. That’s all you need for now.

text and photograph by Gonzalo Bénard, also on twitter: @GBenard
when I’m not blogging on 2HeadS about photography, I’m doing photography, walking, cooking, reading or thinking how can I get to the roof to be naked up there counting the clouds or even watering the plants while fighting with dragons to feel myself a hero. Or just giving some advice to my tutees. All these while writing a book and preparing new exhibitions and developing new projects.