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The Wandering Mind
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[Scene]:
It's 3:00 in the afternoon and you've been buried in a project since 1:30. You're riding a wave of productivity and all your cylinders are firing--you feel energized and engaged, you're thinking clearly, new ideas are flowing!
"It's possible," you tell yourself in a moment of reflective wonderment at all you've accomplished, "that I am indeed a genius!"
And then, it starts to happen-watt by watt, your brilliance dims. The ideas that had been flowing so freely seem to be stuck in a holding pattern in your brain; you start to yawn and stare out the window; you check your email (maybe something interesting or important came in while you were wrapped up in your project?); and you find yourself wondering if anything new--and essential for you to know right now--has been posted on ESPN.com.
What happened to your wave of productivity? Your energy? Your pure genius?
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Heeding the Call of Nature
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Don't worry, you're still a genius! You merely forgot to heed the call of nature (a-hem... not that call. Read on...).
Just as nature is governed by cycles, so is the human body. Most people are generally aware of the 24-hour cycles of sleeping and waking that are the major components of our circadian rhythm ("circa dies" means "around a day").
Less commonly known, however, are the ultradian rhythms ("ultra dies" means "many times a day") that occur in cycles throughout each day. There are many ultradian rhythms (eye blinks, heart rate, hormone regulation, thermal regulation, to name a few), some of which help to account for the energy cycles we feel throughout the day.
According to energy management gurus Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr in their book, The Power of Full Engagement, "Physiological measures such as heart rate, hormonal levels, muscle tension and brain-wave activity all increase during the first part of the [ultradian] cycle-and so does alertness. After an hour or so, these measures start to decline. Somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes the body starts to crave a period of rest and recovery. Signals include a desire to yawn and stretch, hunger pangs, increased tension, difficulty concentrating, an inclination to procrastinate or fantasize and higher incidence of mistakes."
Sound familiar?
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Reclaiming Your Brilliance
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It is possible to override this natural cycle with caffeine, sugar-laden foods, or pure mental grit, but as it turns out, this is only a briefly and marginally effective solution.
Each time you ignore your natural cycles for engagement and recovery, your body summons its "fight or flight" stress response as a means of digging deeper into your energy reservoir. The resulting cascade of cell-damaging hormones has both short-term effects (racing heart rate, perspiration, fractured focus) and long-term effects (insomnia, gastrointestinal distress, and heart disease for starters). It's better to save that reaction for true emergencies.
Why not listen to your wise ol' body and...
Heed the call of nature!
Try taking intermittent breaks every 90 - 120 minutes throughout your day. The key is not how long a break you take, but that you truly change your focus. Disengage from your task or project--get up from your desk and stretch, get a drink of water, take a walk around the block, or visit with a colleague (caution: in an effort to keep good working relations, before interrupting your co-workers, you may want to first make sure you have coinciding ultradian slumps).
Now that's the call of nature I'm talking about.
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