#153 Ed Talks The importance of taking breaks

thank you all for being here another episode of ed talks daily today i'm going to be talking about the importance of taking breaks my name is edward giles aka the holistic motivator every day i have a podcast on personal growth and development while bringing you something along the lines of how to grow and holistically today i'm going to be talking about the importance of taking breaks for your mental wellness which has to do with enhancing your productivity improving your vitality reducing stress and just being satisfied at the end of the day not experiencing a burnout but actually doing the things that you want to get done so we really want to take breaks now what is a break is it uh sometime when you distract yourself by doing something else or is it an instance that you detach from whatever it is that you're doing so that you can re-center yourself and be at peace so break is not a distraction it's an attraction it's something you are willing to do because it's going to enhance your current experience it can be you sitting down breathing it could be you leaving your phone for 10 minutes but by just adding more breaks to your day you're going to be more productive you're going to be more at peace and at the same time you're going to reduce burnout by the end of the day so it's a simple thing you can do working in intervals rather than just working all the way out okay so how does intervals look like you can pick 20 minute intervals 30 minute intervals 10 minute intervals based on what works for you so for instance you can say i'm gonna do this for 20 minutes five minute break then i'm gonna do this for 20 minutes five minute breaks or you can say i'm gonna do this for 30 minutes five minute break and i'm gonna do this for 30 minute five minute break you can even say i'm going to do something for 45 minutes i'm going to take a 15-minute break i'm going to do another task for 45 minutes i'm going to take 15-minute breaks scientifically it has been proven by by doing that you're going to be much more productive and you're going to be more focused on the task at end which is one of the most important productivity tips i can tell you is focus on the task at hand multitasking is actually one of the worst things you can do because your brain is being diverted from tasks to task attached to tasks and you're not giving enough energy to a specific task

so okay let's get it so there are two types of breaks that you can take you can just take a break and go on your phone and do something else i'd say that's a distracting break detracting break because now your brain is not really breaking it's going all over the place because when you're scrolling you're being presented with so much information which means your brain waves are not slowing down you're actually adding more toe to your brain like you could go scroll down your break and what happened is you see something that sparks a negative emote or a limiting emotion i like to say something that gets you fearful now now your whole mood has been ruined so scientists figured out what is called a break from digital devices so that entails doing an activity that does not have to do with a digital device which means it has to do with something like walking in nature something like going out something like sitting in peace so scientists discovered that it's better to take a non-tech break hey adrian welcome scientists discover that it's better to take a break from technology so during your break times instead of taking just a break from whatever it is that you're currently doing but you're also going to take a break from your tech so let's say there's something you wanted to do using the tech then what you can do let's say you want to use your phone for music during your break you should maybe you can just put the phone somewhere else and have a speaker or not even use it listen to the sounds of nature so a tech break is what i'm going to be applying because even me on my brakes i'm not using the tech but it's still around me okay so a technology break so by taking a break from it is going to play an important role in providing your energy so you can perform your work effectively okay so if you don't take any breaks then you're not giving yourself time to actually process what you just did okay so let's say you're working on an important thing you got to send to somebody and then you wrote your you wrote the you wrote the email out right and there's something you were missing by taking a five to ten minute break you're gonna figure out what that missing piece is because we seem to our mind seems to put the finishing touches in the silence okay so you can take a five minute break where you go out you sit you do some breathing exercises that i've been showing during the weekend and then that's gonna help you fuel up so now when you get back again you're not now in the flow you can just focus on whatever it is that you're doing okay so here's what it says i'm gonna read to you the definition how what it means to psychological detach from whatever you're doing so psychological detachment refers to your sense of being away from your work situation so when you are taking breaks from things you don't want to take a break and still have the thing in your mind so when you're not working and you're taking a break don't necessarily use that time to think about what you got to do when you get back right so it's like use your break time not to think about hey what am i going to do at work because then what does that do it steals the break time now while you're breaking you're technically working okay and there are breaks that just happen naturally like for instance you're walking from one spot to another why bombard your mind with a bunch of thoughts when you can make that a what they call a conscious walk so a conscious walk is basically in between your day you're gonna be moving from probably uh uh one section of work to another section or from office to office or from whatever you're moving to are you gonna take a break to go somewhere use that walk as a way to literally be at peace you know what i mean like i say you don't have to go to the park and wait till you go to the park to walk you can literally walk in between it's like but make it meditative the way it becomes meditative is when you're not thinking about anything else but the walk so literally as you step on the ground focus on how your toes are stepping focus on the environment and you're gonna find yourself just noticing just like literally listen to the sounds let the light waves come in and observe everything that's happening within your body in the step it's very effective when you're consciously doing it you know sometimes you don't remember to do it and now you're just thinking about oh what am i going to get in the grocery store well when you walk walk when you shop shop when you work work that's what consciousness is about when you work work when you shop shop when you walk walk so whatever you do it do it do it consciously and literally observe your of the doing it makes everything meditative okay so that's a way to take breaks throughout the entire day so let's say you're also sitting in your office and then there's like a stretch of time where there isn't much to do there isn't much to do in this stretch of time there isn't a task but it's not a necessarily work break what can you do when it's not a task it's not a necessary it's not a break there's no task there's no break you just have idle time well with this idle time you can start thinking about what you're going to do later or whatever or you can use that to meditate so you know what i mean or say a prayer or sing a song in your heart right so there's different practices that you can engage to improve your vitality while you're sitting down now some people have the urge to google something well you can learn something too you can read something right or if you don't like the idea of stealing your employees time um you can find something else to do but do you always have that stretch during work because we're humans there are different things you can do like you can massage your stress point along the thumb right you can massage here at this little ridge so why are you just sitting right or you can do this for your blood pressure while you're just sitting you can literally sit at the edge of the chair and start taking some deep breaths observing your breath whatever it is that has to do with no thought would be the best thing if you're listening and these tips are useful drop a fire in the in the comments so you can literally whatever whatever you're doing you can just make it meditative while you're sitting down not doing too much right i i recommended what i said the che ball achi balder 2 metal ball which you can do a rotational movement that's going to increase moving at the wrists which is a point for your blood pressure this also helps alleviate some pain along the palms so it's different things i found like sometimes i use a i used to use like a fidget spinner just to like it would be very meditative because it's just like one movement right so while you're sitting down like a stress ball squeezing breathing with it different things you can be doing while you're in your work spot to just bring you more peace right so along with that a rice bag put some a drop of essential oil for whatever it is that you're working on there are essential oils for that affect your different emotional states that are also good for your chakras you could i'm going to probably provide a list of that soon so you can just while in your workspace you can cure curate your own piece by taking breaks breaks are super important another type of break can be a physical break right based on where you work if you work and at home it's much easier to go and do a quick 20-minute exercise or work out qigong right in the middle of the day is going to give you that energy that you you need to keep prospering throughout the day so keep filling your cup all day so you don't when you get home you're not fully depleted it did now it takes way more effort to fill up your cup but think about it if you continuously fill your cup as it depletes throughout the day as your cup depleting you keep for filling it up it as it depletes you fulfil you fill it up as it depletes you fill it up eventually what happens is you end up never being empty so all day you had you had your cup filled up with these activities okay so what are other breaks well how about snap breaks to feed your brain snap break to feed your brains a lot of these berries are really good for your brain blueberries is a recommendation so taking a snack break is going to fuel your brain that includes eating certain fruits that's going to energize your brain there's the massage breaks drumming the back of your neck plucking and massaging the skull so throughout the day you can take all types of breaks you can take breathing breaks conscious breaks drumming breaks all different form of breaks moving breaks sitting down breaks a tea break a juicing break

a you can say a mantra you can sing a song right the resonance of the song resonance of the mantra you can visualize the color and breathe you can visualize the color touch your organ and breathe you can visualize the different colors of the chakras and place your hand in it and send healing energy so there are so many different things you can do while you're doing a with a break you can have a pleasant conversation with someone you can have a journaling break where you write about your current experience today you can have a creative break where you draw something you can have a audio experience where you listen to music that just uplifts you you can have a musical break you can have a arts and crafts break arts and craft break you can knit something you can have a puzzling break you could form a puzzle during your break so there's so many different things that you can do during your breaks it's just about being intentional about it i just i have a piano in my room and i remember i used to take piano lessons so now guess what piano i'm going to take a piano musical break so there's so many different things that you can do to take a break it has scientifically been proven that it's gonna enhance your productivity you're gonna get more done in less time so what are the importance of sectioning out your task and intervals well there is a law a law that says that tasks get completed in the amount of time allocated for such tasks so if you give something an hour it's gonna take a night it's gonna take an hour if you give it two days two days if you procras if you say hey it's only seven days ahead seven days is when you're gonna be but if you section it out into pieces let's say you have a test and you say i'm gonna do an hour a day for five days until i complete this you section out the tasks into five hours for five days each task set out for each day and then you spread those into two 20 maybe two 25-minute intervals with a five-minute break right two 20-minute interval two 25-minute intervals with a five-minute break how does that improve your vitality you do number one thing you want to do then you take a five minute break you do number two thing you want to do then you take a five minute break and then now you move on to the next thing so you can have a project stand out for five weeks done within an hour a day and still finish it now the other hours can be for other things which means you don't have to schedule a project out all in one day to complete it it can be done in multiple days but the brakes what the brakes does it gives you time to revitalize and refocus so you can be in the flow state right so there is also something called the concept of flow and what's the concept of flow there is a state you can get into if you have specified goal cont continuous attention with what you're doing an undivided focus so you need to have goals attention and focus by doing that you're going to get in a flow state so whatever you're doing there's a goal right there's something you're going to do you want to finish what's the goal what is the goal so what is it that you want to finish in this time interval if it's not specified then it's hard to actually do it what's the goal and now you have to give all of your focus to it by minimizing the distractions so do not disturb why you're doing the task psychologically your brain hears the notification you almost kind of like do it without thinking you grab the phone the amount of times you pick up your phone every day is the amount of times you get distracted and if you get off track you get off flow so stay on track for just 25 minute interval and then now consciously break for five minutes and then you can have a break where you check your phone but a non-tech break we're going to give you much more clarity okay so a non-tech break is something like a breathing break you can breathe in and then breathe out as long as you exhale breath the reason you're gonna do that is your breath and is your exhalation breath which is your relaxation breath so by breathing no your out breath i'm sorry your out breath is your relaxation breath so when you breathe in your lungs is filling up it's when you breathe out that you your lungs are relaxing right so the diaphragm literally is pushing to get air in and then now it's relaxing and the air comes out so when you breathe in breathe out twice as long as your exhale breath and you're gonna slowly exhale out the stealth air that resides in the low bottom of your lungs that's gonna get you in a relaxation mode another one is to breathe in through one nostril and then breathe out the other breathing through one nostril then breathe out the other and the energizing one is the fire breathing where you breathe sips of air continuously

all right so that also gives you energy you feel sleepy and i talked about the body drumming and the plucking okay and the ear massage and if you want more about that you got attend the class so you can learn them and then you can apply them okay and i have a program where i'm gonna send you those things okay so taking breaks are super important and it is the most important thing you can do the most satisfied people in life they take breaks and they play they play and they take breaks so we we're in that work work work if you're not working you're lazy that's not true if you're working all the time you're not living so play take break time take time to be at peace take time to sip tea do the things that don't pay your bank but pay your vitality bank right don't do the things that don't deposit money in your bank but deposits wellness in your mind these are the things that pay more than what your job pays that's walking intentionally breathing juicing taking 5 or 10 minutes to rest taking some time to say affirmation let's say today is a really guiltful day a shameful day a uncertain day a fearful day it's time for you to feed your soul with some positive energy positive words some encouraging message and it's important to do that which means don't keep that employee mentality that we all develop not only from the school of like yo follow this work work work no work no play like your boss saying hey what you doing you mean am i supposed to work every single hour like a slave no that's not how it works we don't have to keep that mentality because we are they was trying to stuff it down all of our throats and we all at some point had a job or was in school and we had this concept you had to work the entire hour the full eight hours no it's not about that okay you must take these breaks see it's you know like some of us we don't even take the 15 or the five that we're supposed to get for free at work because we're like i want to show that i'm a hard worker and that no breaks are important take your breaks to feed your spirit to allow yourself to be more at peace those quiet breaks over time is going to bring you the peace that you need the the focus that you need gonna get you in the flow state that's gonna allow you to be able to really achieve what you wanna achieve okay so that's my message i'm sticking to it taking breaks is super important scientifically proven to enhance your productivity improve your vitality and then overall throughout your life you're gonna find yourself being more at peace being able to handle the challenges responding different because of that five minute break you're going to end up making even more money than you made before before because you can take a pause right something sometimes you can say a word that scares away somebody or that that makes you lose a client but if you can take a break pause and then respond think about all the things that you can alleviate all the miscommunications all the misunderstandings all the things you didn't mean to say but you said in the heat of the moment a break mentality also gives you that space in between to literally decide what you're gonna do and what you're gonna say and really think about what you're doing right think about what it is narrate your life a little bit i like to say like that narrate your life that way you can literally direct it like a director so as you find yourself doing certain things notice what it is they're doing label it like label it and then know it so that you can say hey okay so let's say you're sitting down and you notice that you feel uncomfortable as in you don't feel right within yourself now you're gonna have a couple of options option a distract option b attract attract more wellness or distract with something else so what's a distracting distraction action netflix youtube instagram what's an attraction action uh uh let me study or let me learn let me breathe let me just relax or let me just sit still or let me paint or let me do something productive let me do something um relaxing something crafty see that's a detractive behavior it's in the consciousness that we can say do i want to distract myself or do i want to attract a new skill attract a new way of like being right now do i want to attract more peace do i want to go sit down choices right and choice is done by willpower sometimes right and the more you have to use your willpower the less of it you got left okay so when you take breaks every day you automatically find yourself picking the attractive thing because now every day you don't necessarily have to choose from distraction of attraction you already said scheduled your attractive behaviors you already scheduled your breaks you scheduled your breathing you like you literally have this thing in your google calendar your reminder app or you're getting text messages with a reminder you literally schedule them so you have to use less willpower because it's there you just have to decide and make the energy to do it when it shows up that's another subject right so schedule your breaks and it will change your life that is my message for today and i am sticking to it being here i enjoy to i enjoy making these every day and if you want to learn more about the breaks the exercises you can do the breathing qigong just go to try qigong.com register for the next class and you're going to get more details on how to do specific exercises to release muscle tension anxiety and uh stuck energy within your body help you get more at peace help you get more um zenned out relax and just it's just the most effective way to take a break the most effective way to take a break is really qigong the different exercises really really solve all of those it gives you all the tools that you need plus you kind of learn how to listen to your body so that's just try qigong.com and then if you just want to support the podcast catch up ed talks you can subscribe by going to edtalksdaily.com and that's pretty much all the announcements i have for you with that being said enjoy the rest of your day keep living in your power keep priming your peace keep growing and remember don't let your light dim don't dim your light keep shining it believe that who you are is important what you have is important and what you're going to do is important all right peace thank you all for watching thank you everyone for sharing thank you everyone for watching thank you everyone for supporting

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