Breaks
Learn from professional athletes: Take breaks at work
While the Dutch are honing their pressing game and the Germans are playing positions and set pieces, the Danish national team players are standing with mini golf clubs in their hands.
Some are trying to send the ball through the mill for the fifth time. Others are chasing their first hole-in-one of the day.
Before one of the most important matches in Danish football history, then-national coach Richard Møller Nielsen canceled training. Instead, he sent the players out to play mini golf.
It may not sound like the recipe for a European Championship title in football. But it was part of the reality for the Danish national team in 1992.
Granted, a lot of balls have been dribbled since then, but perhaps we can learn something from the 1992 European Championship heroes who swapped the training pitch for a round of mini golf. What would happen if we swapped half an hour of work for a midday nap?
We are terrified of the individual's ability to slow down. But we can't keep asking employees to speed up if they are already at their maximum level.Nicklas Pyrdol,
Sports and Business Coach
“We are afraid of letting employees slow down”
Of course, revolutionising our break culture is easier said than done. Taking more breaks may not be met with the same enthusiasm from all managers. Just as it was the national coach who set the course for the national team, it also requires a culture in the workplace where there is room for breaks and recovery. Achievements in working life require preparation and hard work, but they also require peace of mind.
That's Nicklas Pydrol's mantra. He has a background as a sports coach for elite athletes. Today, he works to coach leaders and business professionals to perform and develop talent. He definitely believes that the business world can learn something from the world of sports in terms of getting employees to succeed without burning out.
'There is something we have missed in business. We are terrified of the individual's ability to slow down. But we can't keep asking employees to speed up if they are already at their maximum level,' says Nicklas Pyrdol.
The business community can draw inspiration from the world of sports
There is a significant cultural difference between the world of sports and the business world.
One of the most significant differences is that in sports people are very aware of how important it is to be recovered in order to perform.
'In the world of sports, you may be in performance mode five percent of the time. The remaining 95 percent you spend training and preparing. Everyone knows you are practicing. In business, you are rarely allowed to sit with tasks that do not need to be carried out further in the organisation or out to customers and citizens. This means that you are constantly in performance mode,' says Nicklas Pyrdol.
It may sound completely wrong in a world where we've become accustomed to being on and available all the time. But if we want to create peak performance in our working lives, we may need to work less and become better at taking time off and unplugging.
Just think of Jonas Vingegaard and the rest of the peloton cycling team. If they had to ride the Tour de France every single day year-round, it wouldn't be long before they started to fall behind or had to get off the bike altogether. Nicklas Pyrdol points out that the lack of balance between performance and recovery is preventing employees from thriving.
'At the same time, there is often an expectation from managers that employees can show up every day, year-round, with fire in their eyes, be fully focused and meticulously oriented from morning to night. There is something about that expectation that does not match what we know about performance,' says Nicklas Pyrdol.
The brain is not built to be on constantly.
If we look at the numbers, there are also signs that several of IDA's members are experiencing a high pace and work pressure. More than one in five indicated in IDA's member survey from 2023 that they feel stressed.
According to brain researcher, author and specialist Troels W. Kjær, it's not surprising that the brain can't always keep up with the way we work. The brain is simply not built to be on all the time.
'If we want to have more energy, we need to get better at taking breaks. This applies to both the very small micro-breaks of a few seconds, where we stop and ask ourselves whether what we are doing makes sense, and the long breaks in life, where we really relax,' says Troels W. Kjær, who has written the book Pull the Plug, which is about giving the brain a break to become more efficient.
He points out that micro-breaks are already a regular part of industries where mistakes can have serious consequences.
'When surgeons are about to operate, they take a timeout just before the procedure. Is it the right patient? Is it the right side of the body? The same thing is done in aviation. You stop and double-check before you act. These small breaks can prevent big mistakes,' says Troels W. Kjær.
According to Troels W. Kjær, the problem is that many of us rarely stop in our everyday lives.
'Once we've gone down a path, we often just keep going. We don't take the time to ask ourselves if we're still going in the right direction,' he says.
The brain does not distinguish between whether it is stressed at work or at home.Troels W. Kjær
Take a nap and go for a walk
Troels W. Kjær himself shares, without hesitation or a trace of guilt in his voice, that after the interview he will turn off his phone and take a 30-minute nap. Because, as he says, recovery is a prerequisite for the brain to function optimally.
It has also become a popular story that the renowned physicist Niels Bohr was known for taking long walks during the working day because the movement helped him gather his thoughts and see problems from new angles.
This is a point that brain research largely supports: The brain does not perform best when it works continuously, but when it is allowed to alternate between concentration and recovery, explains Troels W. Kjær.
It may seem paradoxical in today's society that time spent on breaks can make us more efficient rather than function as extra working time. But according to Troels W. Kjær, there is a significant difference between delivering quickly and delivering well.
'If you expose people to short-term stress, for example by giving them an hour to complete a task, they become very focused. They work hard, have a handle on the details and often finish on time,' he says.
But the interesting thing happens when you break your concentration with short breaks along the way.
'If you take breaks for up to nine percent of the time, you see that people become less detail-oriented. In return, they get a bigger overview. They get up in the helicopter and become more creative,' explains Troels W. Kjær.
In other words, time pressure can be effective if the goal is simply to get the task done quickly. But if the ambition is to create the best possible solution, breaks are crucial.
'If you work constantly under pressure, you can deliver a product. But maybe the result is merely good. If you give your brain space to disconnect along the way, you might end up with a great solution because you see the larger context,' says Troels Kjær.
The brain does not take time off when we go home from work
But recovery isn't just about breaks at work. It's also about life outside of work.
We often talk about work and private life as if they are two separate worlds. But the brain does not distinguish between the two, emphasizes Troels W. Kjær.
'The brain doesn't distinguish between whether it's stressed at work or at home, so it will follow you,' says Troels W. Kjær.
Just as we change our clothes depending on whether we are at home or at the office, it would be convenient if we could also change our brains. But we can't.
The frustration you bring with you from a chaotic drop-off at daycare follows you into the office. And the long meeting that drained you in the afternoon doesn't necessarily disappear when you unlock the front door at home. It's a perspective Nicklas Pyrdol places a lot of emphasis on when he's out advising companies.
'When we have to perform, we are whole people. Maybe your child is about to start kindergarten. Maybe you are in the process of renovating. Maybe you are in the middle of a divorce. If you come home from work and mentally continue to be at work, you are not recovered when you get up the next morning,' says Nicklas Pyrdol.
Therefore, it is also not realistic to expect the same level of performance from people in all phases of life.
Take breaks of different kinds
For many of us, sitting in front of the computer all day still feels more fulfilling than getting up and looking out the window for five minutes. Breaks can easily come to resemble laziness if the culture around us doesn't accept them.
But according to Troels Kjær, it is a misunderstanding.
It's not necessarily the many hours in front of the screen that make us most productive. On the contrary, the brain needs different kinds of breaks.
'Some last a few seconds. The little micro-breaks where we stop and ask ourselves if we are heading in the right direction. Others last two to ten minutes and function as motivational breaks where the brain gets the opportunity to switch off a bit,' says Troels W. Kjær.
And then there are the long creative breaks.
'It can be half a day in nature or a long walk. The time when the mind is allowed to wander without a specific goal. This means that the task that seemed overwhelming in the morning can suddenly appear much simpler after a few hours away from the desk,' says Troels W. Kjær.
Because neither the 1992 European Championship heroes nor your brain are built to be in top shape all the time. So take a break after reading this article and look out the window or maybe like Troels W. Kjær take a good, old-fashioned afternoon nap.
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