Ensuring times of doing nothing is good for the brain.

Boredom can lead to creativity and other benefits.

Get comfortable with periods of no activity.

Science supports reducing our cognitive load, so practice doing it.

When’s the last time you did absolutely nothing?

You are probably reading this on your phone, head down, neck bent. You are engaging your brain for sure: different lobes are aiding the sensation of visual stimuli and the perception of words. Language processing centers and higher order thinking are making sense of it all. The more engaging you find this piece, the more of your cognitive attention is taken up. The intellectual stimulation is good, but not doing anything at all may be even better for you. As an academic, I talk to students about taking breaks a lot. Breaks can be productive for learning. Students are less fatigued and have more energy after a break of any type, but an exercise break had both short term attention effects and was beneficial up to 20 minutes later compared to not taking a break at all (Blasche et al., 2018). Taking physical breaks during a 50-minute lecture........

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