“Brain Fatigue” and the Best Thing to Do on Practice Breaks

Whether you’re practicing, studying, or doing your taxes, there comes a point where your brain may begin to get a little fatigued, your thinking gets a bit sluggish, and it’s difficult to think productively and creatively (though tax prep is probably not the best time to be flexing your creativity muscles).

Taking breaks is an important part of staying productive and getting past this “brain fatigue.” And there are various schools of thought on how best to integrate breaks into one’s work. I grew up with the classic 50/10 split (practice for 50 minutes, then take a 10-min break), but there’s also the 25/5 “Pomodoro,” and even the more unusual 52/17 split.

But the other question is…what should we be doing during our break time to maximize mental recovery and prepare ourselves best for the next block of practice?

Should we chat with friends? Spend a few minutes on TikTok? Read a book? Go for a walk? Take a coffee nap?

Enhancing creativity

Well, there are indications in the research that exercise could enhance creativity and other cognitive processes. Which is great in theory, but for most of us, that’s not going to be motivation enough to get us to go for a run.

So, wondering if there might be an easier way to get the same cognitive benefits, a pair of Stanford researchers (Oppezzo & Schwartz, 2014) conducted a series of studies to see if walking might be enough to give us a mental boost.

They rounded up 48 participants and asked them to complete a standard creativity test¹ while sitting in a chair or while walking on a treadmill.

The test involves brainstorming as many different uses for a common object as possible, and is a measure of “cognitive flexibility” or the ability to avoid getting mentally stuck in one limited category. For instance, when given the prompt of “button,” one participant responded with alternate uses including “a doorknob for a dollhouse, an eye for a doll, a tiny strainer, to drop behind you to keep your path.”

So did walking have any effect on the participants’ creativity?

Sitting vs. walking

Indeed!

81% of the participants improved performance on the test while walking, generating about 50% more ideas on average than they did while sitting.

And it wasn’t just an increase in the number of ideas; they tended to come up with more creative ideas when walking too.

A residual effect!

A follow-up study even found that this boost in creativity lasted beyond the short period of time when participants were actively walking. There was a residual effect, where participants continued to experience greater creativity even after they sat back down for another round of creativity testing.

So if you’re feeling kind of stuck in your practice, and can’t seem to get past a tricky issue that has you stumped, instead of scrolling through Instagram during your next break, a short walk might actually be the best way to prepare your brain for a more thoughtful and effective 25 or 50 minutes of practice.

But…does this mean we should just walk up and down the hall for a few minutes? Or is there a more effective way to do this?

Where to walk?

Well, studies suggest that where we walk may be an important factor in battling brain fatigue too.

A group of Scottish researchers (Aspinall et al., 2015) were curious about the impact of different environments on our state of mind. Specifically, they were wondering what difference a more natural “green” space might have relative to crowded urban environments.

To find out, they hooked up 12 Edinburgh University students to a portable EEG headset, and asked them to take a 1.5 mile walk through three different parts of Edinburgh as the headset measured their brain wave activity.

The first part of the walk took them through an urban shopping district, with lots of people, buildings, and some traffic.

The second part of their walk went through a large nature area (sort of like Central Park in NYC) with lots of open green space, lawns, trees, and playing fields.

And the final part of their walk took them through a busy, loud, crowded commercial district with heavy traffic.

And was there any meaningful difference in how their brains responded in these three environments?

Green is better!

Looking at the readings from each portion of their walk, researchers found that walking through the park reduced indicators of stress, and facilitated a more meditative state.

In other words, the “green” space was more mentally restorative than walking around the city.

Other studies in the field of environmental psychology have made similar observations, and suggest that natural settings may help us recover from stress and restore our attentional resources.

A University of Michigan study for instance (Berman et al., 2009), found that a walk through the campus arboretum was more effective than a walk through downtown Ann Arbor in helping participants recharge their mental batteries – and helped them perform better on mentally-demanding tasks. A phenomenon that has been observed in research on children with ADHD as well.

So what are we to do with all of this?

Take action

Well, taking my kids’ dog out to pee is not an activity that I’m especially fond of doing when I’m trying to get stuff done. But I have to admit that a short walk around the block often does clear the cobwebs from my head and help me find my second wind on a long writing day (or during a marathon TurboTax session).

So the next time you’re practicing or studying and start to feel “brain fatigue” kick in, try going for a short stroll outside. And not through a busy, heavily trafficked area where there’s tons of stimuli that’s likely to grab your attention. Or in an area where you have to be attentive to your surroundings for safety reasons (like a busy intersection or sketchy dark alley).

Instead, try to find a quieter, calmer, nature-y place with some greenery, where your mind is free to wander and relax. See if that feels more restorative than catching up on your emails, or grabbing a cup of sub-par coffee from the vending machine in the lounge (which might be somewhat detrimental to your practice anyhow!). 😖

References

Aspinall, P., Mavros, P., Coyne, R., & Roe, J. (2013). The urban brain: analysing outdoor physical activity with mobile EEG. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 49(4), 272–276. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2012-091877

Oppezzo, M., & Schwartz, D. L. (2014). Give your ideas some legs: The positive effect of walking on creative thinking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 40(4), 1142–1152. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036577

Román, P., Soriano, M. F., Gómez‐Ariza, C. J., & Bajo, M. T. (2009). Retrieval-Induced forgetting and executive control. Psychological Science, 20(9), 1053–1058. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02415.x