Restore your Academic Focus with Rest
Amy Barr with The Lukeion Project
In our live online classes, we educators regularly ask polls to get everyone settled and seated before the day’s work begins. For years we have asked how many students take breaks from their educational pursuits and how many push through all four seasons and most holidays. Probably half respond that they enjoy breaks and balance. Around 15% of our students never take time off. For them, one season flows into the next without many changes to the relentless academic schedule. Inevitably, the conversation turns to asking these particular students, “how’s that working for you?”
As educators, we have a unique vantage point when we ask these questions. We have a little insight (at least through grades and class behavior) into how well students perform whether they take a more balanced approach (rest, work, and variations in schedules) compared to those who press hard full time. Nobody should be surprised to hear that our best and brightest tend to also have a better life-work balance. Students who push through the year full time tend to be more stressed, academically, and socially. It turns out that balance really is the key to everything.
Breaks during the hard work of gaining an education, one might object, is a luxury that few can afford! How can one be the best at what one does unless one uses every moment?
Margins, down-time, adjustments to tempo, variations in intensity, switching out of deep habits to try new things or new topics, rest, recovery, review…these are all ways to not only restore one’s tired soul, but also to restore one’s focus and intensity toward the parts of life that matter most. Nobody performs well long term in a life that is all push and no pull.
The Roman poet Horace was a Stoic advocate of seeking the Golden Middle. Through his poetry, he implored us to search for balance in life. There’s no guarantee we’ll have the downtime we crave in the future. Seize the day! This isn’t an admonition to hustle all the time to squeeze every drop from life. Sometimes, seizing the day is a matter of getting away from the desk and computer or walking away from practice and review or briefly forgetting there’s a transcript to fill out for college. Sometimes we should pluck (carpe) the day, like harvesting a juicy apple from a tree. Relish the time. Enjoy the flavor and sunshine.
"Whether Jupiter is giving you many more winters or this one as your last...Know this: cut short long-term hope for a little while. While we have been speaking just now, hateful time will have already fled! Seize the day! Trust as little as possible in the future."
As we enter a time of year in which there is an increased opportunity for rest. Seize the day and be intentional with your pursuit of balance, margin, and breaks. As we scurry frantically to complete our obligations, let us also –at least occasionally—pull the blanket over our head for a longer snooze on a rainy Saturday. Learn to do some very nonacademic things like roasting a turkey, dancing a silly dance, helping a needy neighbor, or shooting the breeze with an older family member who really misses you. Your obligations will patiently wait while you schedule some much needed rest and restoration.
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