When was the last time you stopped?
I see two sides to this play out when it comes to Productivity.
On the one side, you have the Hustlers...
They never stop...
In fact, they take great pride in the idea of working all the time.
On the other side, you have the person who is in constant dis-stress...
From work, life, and every other challenge that they are facing...
So by the time they get home...
They plop because it is about all they have left in them to do.
Here's the problem...
Both of these approaches have horrible consequences.
Indeed, they both will actually decrease productivity in the long term.
At either end of this, it will cut like a double-edged sword.
If you never stop...
You're going to run into an energy (Mg-ATP) problem.
We can only produce so much energy (Mg-ATP) at any given time...
And if we are pushing ourselves at high levels...
We will burn through energy (Mg-ATP) faster than we can make it...
Which requires the body to "strip" itself down...
Eventually leading to Burnout.
In Burnout, based on the scientific research, our productivity potential drops to 5% or less.
By pushing beyond our psychophysiological limits, we destroy our productivity.
But on the other hand, we are not served well by doing nothing either.
What happens on this end?
Our bodies require some level of stressors, called eustress, to grow.
We "need" challenges in our lives.
Without challenges, without eustress, we become psychophysiologically bored.
A little bit of boredom is fine, and can even be healthy.
But long periods of boredom?
It destroys our physical and social wellness.
We see this occur in animals in captivity.
When their environment is not stimulating enough, they develop mental illness, physically degrade, and will often die early.
This is why animals in captivity are put through enrichment programs, which prevent them from getting too bored.
This happens in humans as well when our environments are not stimulating enough.
The end result, whether you stop too much or not enough, is bad for your productivity.
What happens for many people is that they create a psychophysiological whiplash in their lives by switching from doing too much to doing nothing.
They do their work in constant dis-stress...
Then get home and do nothing...
The entire time, slashing away at their productivity potential...
And destroying themselves in the process.
If you hope to avoid this result...
You need to learn how to stop productively.
When you are working, you can do microrecoveries.
Short stops, which allow your body to recoup before getting back into the work.
When you are in full recovery mode, you can do active recovery.
It is doing small, psychophysiologically simple tasks while recovering.
This can include things like taking a small walk...
Or easy workouts like air squats, pushups of any kind, or even rolling on the ground.
Maybe you can cook and do the dishes by hand...
Or playing a slightly challenging game like a Sudoku Puzzle.
The point of these active recoveries is to do things that are a "little" challenging...
While still recovering overall.
You, of course, can still do a complete stop for a bit of time...
But the key is not to do "long" periods of nothing.
By navigating between these two extremes, you can end up recovering faster and become significantly more productive.
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