Ryan Dohrn explains how skipping breaks causes physical pain and burnout. He uses the Pomodoro technique—25 minutes of work, 5-minute break—plus stretching and walks to stay productive through the afternoon. People who honor breaks stay vibrant; those who power through crash by 2 or 3 pm.
How many breaks do you take a day? I mean, is it a lot? Maybe it is a lot if you work remote. Maybe you need to get back to work. But if you're like me, once these lights come on, once I sit in front of the keyboard, once the email starts flowing, I don't get up enough. I don't take enough breaks. And actually it was causing me physical harm. I was having to go to the chiropractor more frequently. My hips were locking up, kind of all kinds of problems. Now, you've heard me talk about the Pomodoro technique before. That's where you work on a task for 25 minutes, and then you take a 5-minute break. You come off of task. One of the things you need to remember to do is get up, come off of task and get up, go do something. So one of the things, it's kind of, kind of sound a little crazy, but a couple times of day, I cleared a space here in my studio in front of my desk where I can actually lay on the floor and stretch out. I can stretch my back, I can stretch my neck, I can lay and cross my legs and stretch my hips. I physically get up and block out time for an afternoon break where I go and take a walk. But friends, when you don't take breaks, you do cause yourself physical harm. It doesn't have a chance to cool down. My observation of the clients that I work with and myself, those that schedule breaks and actually come off task and actually take breaks, those are the people that are still vibrant in the afternoon. Those that are just like literally just powering through and never taking a break, by 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon, they are exhausted and kind of worthless later on in the day. From a brain perspective, I would just ask you this. Do you understand what burnout really is? Burnout is a psychological phenomenon, if you will, maybe not a phenomenon, but a psychological situation, if you will, Where your brain gets so hot and so overwhelmed that it just says, hey, Ryan, you're not going to shut yourself down. So now I'm going to shut you down. And that's when those breaks occur. If you've got a problem that you need to talk to a doctor about, make sure you do that. But I'm just telling you right now, one of the secrets really is taking a lot more breaks. I'm pretty sure that I'm pretty accurate that you do need to give your brain a break because if you don't, your brain will give you the break that it needs to be successful.
