If you’ve ever worked in any office environment or maybe just in school you will have probably noticed that smokers usually are more creative and more social than regular people. They are usually “the cool kids” because of it. There’s a reason for that. Have you ever wondered why that is? What do these people do on an unconscious level that make them more sociable and creative?
No I’m not advocating you start smoking or anything, I’m just going to analyze smoking a bit and point out some of the reasons why this tends to happen.
What is creativity and how it shows up
According to Websters dictionary creativity is:
the ability to make new things or think of new ideas
Creativity is mainly a right brain activity, a disorderly, mix and match process that is not under our control most of the time. It comes up when we usually are not paying attention, relaxed and disconnected. Don’t your best ideas usually come when you are in the shower, or on a walk, or in bed just before you want to go to sleep?
What this tells you about creativity is that you need to be in a different state of mind. You need to be relaxed and disconnect from your logical/analytical left side of the brain.
Why are smokers cooler and more creative people?
Have you ever taken a good look at how a regular workday looks for a smoker? Did you ever get the feeling that they are slacking off because they take a 5-10min smoking brake every hour? Did you also notice that despite them taking so many brakes they still end up getting their stuff done in time and well?
Let’s brake the act of smoking down and see what happens.
- Due to the Nicotine you feel the urge to smoke or are stressed and you go for a smoke on a regular interval. Usually every 1 to 2 hours.
- If your office doesn’t allow indoor smoking, you have do go outside, in the sun, wind, rain, fresh air and so on….do you see where I’m going with this?
- You start smoking, the Nicotine instantly hits your bloodstream, you feeling the calming effects and start to relax.
- Usually there are other smokers there, all undergoing the same effect, relaxing, removing inhibitions which leads to uninhibited conversations. Good conversations.
- During this time you might also get some grate ideas on what you have just been working(creativity).
- You finish your 5 to 15 min smoking brake and get back to work. You slacker! Just kidding.
What has just happened is that this person, the smoker, has just taken a 10 to 15 min. brake from his logical, number crunching, planning work, had to get his body moving for a couple of minutes, get some fresh air(not really) and be social with others. If you tell me this practice definitely takes you out of your thinking brain and gets you more focused on the present moment and in your own body.
Another benefit of regular brakes is that they give your body and brain chemistry time to replenish resources making you more alert and better prepared for the next hour or so of work.
You know how everybody says your chair and desk job is slowly killing you? The solution that most expects recommend is either getting a standing desk, or, and this is more relevant to our analogy here, standing up regularly and moving around a bit. I would say that going for a 10 min walk every hour would fit right in there wouldn’t it?
The counter intuitive benefits of regular brakes
I honestly wanted to call this post “The counter intuitive benefits of regular brakes” but then I realized that giving you a hands on example would be better. Smoking is obviously not good for your health, but the act of taking a 10-15min every couple of hours is.
In the book The Power of Full Engagement, Tony Schwartz and Jim Loaher go into much detail explaining the power of regular brakes. They describe how the human body has multiple cycles running simultaneously taking care of our various bodily functions. A few obvious ones are the day and night cycle, the rate of your breath, beating of your heart and many many more.
Jim Loehr watched multiple high level professional tennis players to see what makes the difference between the winners and the losers. What he discovered was that both groups had the same technical skill level and surprisingly this wasn’t the main reason some were better than other. The main difference he discovered was what the players were doing in between games. While the lower ranked players kept their energy high, and stayed focused on the game, ready to go further, the higher ranked players moved the racked to their other had, effectively resting their main hand, used what is known as the matador walk on their way to the bench and started playing with the racket as if it was a guitar.
The high performers were taking brakes, completely disconnecting from the activity they were previously doing. Why at first they both played very similar, as the day kept going, the performance of the players that didn’t do this started to degrade and they ended up losing. This patters has been found with other people at the top of their fields. For example concert pianists tend to practice for cycles of 30 to 90 minutes and then take a 30 minute brake.
The most important cycles that have to do with creativity and productivity are the day night cycle, know as the circadian cycle and the ultradian cycle that takes 90 to 120 min. During the ultradian cycle you are alert and have high energy for 60 to 90 min then right afterward you suffer a low-point in energy where your body needs to recover its energy.
These cycles run naturally throughout the day and just by reading this you will start noticing it. You will notice the 9 AM and 3:30PM coffee brakes where everyone suddenly feels their energy starting to ween and decide to go for a coffee. Instead of thanking their body for offering them 2 hours of high energy, high attention productivity, most people decide they want more and force their body to work in a period when it was supposed to rest. This is why most people are stressed out of their minds during and after the workday and need an entire weekend just to recover from the previous week.
Even if regular brakes might make you feel like you are cheating yourself out of time you could be using to do work, you are refilling the gas-tank and changing the oil in your brain so that you will become much more productive in the time you do work. You will be able to focus better and think better on your task than you would otherwise be.
How to take brakes to your benefit
What we are focusing on is high energy throughout the day, not just the first 2-3 hours in the morning. This is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. So you might now be thinking: “But I don’t smoke, how am I supposed to take 10-15min brakes?”
It’s quite simple actually when you think about it.
Do you drink water during the day? Instead of having a large beverage or large container of water on your table like most people, only use a glass of water. Just one. As much as you would drink in one sitting. Then when you run out of water or are thirsty, you get up out of your chair, and walk to the faucet or fridge, pour a new glass of water and walk back. You have just created a 1-2min brake for yourself and also included a small walk straightening your back.
If you don’t already drink tea, you could start. Making a cup of tea has a built in 10 min brake. The tea needs 5 to 8min to infuse and you need another couple of minutes for the water cooker to boil. As a bonus, tea has a lot of antioxidants in it and the caffeine delivery of tea is spread over longer than the spike coffee usually gives you for an hour or 2. Tea boosts your metabolism and is generally very good for you.
If you take your lunch with you to work, instead of eating it at your desk, you could go for a walk and eat it outside in the fresh air. If you like to order things, go instead to a restaurant near your work if possible.
You can get very creative with these and they mostly depend on your individual possibilities. But generally there are multiple moments available during the day.
For example I could drive to work for 15 min. in traffic, getting angry, wasting money on gas or I could walk through nature for 30min. So I walked to work and I have to say that that walk on the way home is so incredibly relaxing. I am refreshed when I get home and can focus on other things. You get in a very good mood at work and you get in a very good mood home. I also used this time to listen to audiobooks in the mornings.
The most important thing about taking these small brakes is to completely disconnect. Just stop thinking about whatever you were doing and get into the now, into your body, look out the window, smell the tea as it’s infusing, relax, meditate if you can. Do whatever you need to do to just unwind and disconnect.
