Take a break

Looking at the Milky Way in Evening Attire - George Barbier

What does it mean to take a break?

Five minutes in the middle of a practice session, a day off from exercise after a hard workout, thirty seconds between weight-lifting sets, stopping for some ice water on a hot day of gardening, a few weeks of not talking in a complicated relationship, the end of something that no longer suits…

This handful of examples of ways to take a break barely scratches the surface. Even more important than taking break is the understanding how to take the right type of break in any given situation.

Musicians and artists are just now beginning to understand the cognitive and muscle implications of smartly-placed breaks, the ways that we can help our mind and muscles codify the information we give them during practice. In some cases, it is only rest or even sleep that provide the necessary final touches. Athletes have been ahead of us on this for quite some time.

Beyond what breaks and do for learning and exercise, there is the more complex picture of breaks for emotional well-being and resilience. To understand how to “take a break” we also have to understand our temperament, emotional bandwidth, and what provides or depletes our energy, which is different for each of us.

Even with an elevated understanding of our physical or mental needs, it is possible to override our instincts and overwork ourselves. Our culture encourages us to push our limits, and it is necessary to meet our edges at least occasionally, but the more bandwidth we use up without replenishment the more likely we are to ignore our own red flags.

Learning how much is enough, and how much is too much, is a life long quest. In the past year and a half I have over scheduled and physically overworked myself, resulting in a lack of energy for most of my activities as well as a persistent injury. The worst part? I absolutely know better.

I’ve spent the last five years trying to cull the unnecessary from my life. I’ve become certified in wellness practices to help myself manage my tendency to overdo everything, and in many ways I’ve slowed down. I’ve learned to build better support systems and boundaries. But I can still be blinded by ambition and shiny external reassurances like gigs, auditions, and praise. It can be incredibly hard to argue with the part of our brain that keeps saying we can rest later.

When we don’t take breaks, we run the risk of losing touch with our instincts and ourselves. We can end up working too hard on things we don’t even want in the first place, override what we know, and turn a blind eye toward our intuition. We can create struggles for ourselves that didn’t previously exist.

Maybe breaks are so challenging because no one sees them. Real breaks are the opposite of searching for an easy, quick fix solution on the internet. They’re not marketable, attractive, or neatly packaged. The big ones are often messy or boring. They require digging into all the things we’ve been avoiding or doing unintentionally or subconsciously (or in self-sabotage).

If we skip out on small breaks or times of respite we risk an implosion. A forced messy break. In those scenarios a drastic change is often required. I’ve been setting the stage to be able to shift my work, but I was so tightly attached to how things have been that it took a real run-in with burnout, and a moderately messy break, to get me to actually change.

So how can we get better at the art of taking a break? Maybe we can start with clearer terminology for what any given type of break is trying to accomplish. I don’t love the word balance - it’s admirable, but unlikely. Life can have a healthy overlap of activities but it is rarely balanced. Instead of learning to take a break or aiming to be balanced, it might be more helpful to focus on cultivating resilience. The ability to navigate the demands of creative work without losing ourselves in the process. There are other elements to creating resilience in addition to taking appropriate breaks. With a slightly clearer framework in mind, we can utilize breaks more clearly and give them a specific intention that supports our creative and personal lives.

Ways you can take a break, to varying degrees, with the objective of creating resilience:

Put your phone down

Don’t pick up your phone (especially in the morning)

Set times of day for checking and writing emails, text messages, etc.

Take as many walks as possible, short or long

Practice your instrument or creative medium in increments of changing lengths, with varying lengths of breaks

(Fifteen minutes of practice with a five minute break, thirty minutes of practice with a ten minute break, etc.)

Take micro breaks during practice

(Intervals of just seconds - Molly Gebrian’s book Learn Faster, Perform Better does an excellent job of outlining this)

Call or leave a voice message for a friend

End your day with a non-screen activity

Say no to something

Schedule semester breaks for private lessons, private instruction, or work if you are self-employed

(One or two weeks between summer, fall, and over the winter holidays)

Create healthy boundaries around your availability for work

(i.e. teaching some nights of the week but not all, not teaching on weekends, not committing to unpaid activities that require weeknights, etc.)

Schedule something fun

(This can be something small, but it does need to be intentional)

Schedule time for a personal creative project

(Make this time non-negotiable and treat it like an appointment with someone else)

Stretch or get up and move regularly during your working hours

Make time once a week or once a month to sit down and hand write what you’d like to focus on for the upcoming week or month. Put the list somewhere visible.

Do one non-work activity with your full attention every day like making coffee, cooking a meal, your skin care routine, or caring for indoor plants or a garden

Regularly evaluate what work and activities are giving or draining your energy. Commit to taking bigger breaks or making changes as needed

Cultivate your sense of when to stop practicing, working, etc. - work on your awareness of when and how you are most productive

Make time to just be without excess noise, being available to anyone, or tasks to accomplish

This is not an exhaustive list, but I hope it provides a refreshing sense of scope and maybe some ideas about where you could allow yourself some breaks. Breaks help us manage the balance of tension and relief in our lives, and too often we leave that up to others. It’s our responsibility to choose an appropriate amount of output and input, and even though it might feel hard to take a break, with a little intention and fortitude we can do it any time we need to.