In Defense of Taking a Break

In March 2017 I wrote a blog post titled 'In Defense of Taking a Break', and I never published it. I'm not sure why I let it lie dormant, but on reading it back I think it's a very honest and important piece of writing about work expectations and intensity in academia. It's so easy to put pressure on yourself in an environment where everyone is expecting us to succeed. I wrote this at one of the most stressful periods of my life, and it shows. But I also think it was necessary and therapeutic for me to write all of this down.

I know that sometimes life doesn't allow us to have breaks. We get hit by things that we can't control, our bodies fail us, we have to put our attention on 100 different things at once and physically can't spare a moment for ourselves. Sometimes life turns breaks into a luxury. But I hope that by publishing this now, when I know I managed to survive it all, it can inspire someone who is able to sit back from their work for an hour, or even a day, and embrace doing nothing.



We live in an era of human productivity, where if we aren't studying, working or moving towards something lasting and worthwhile then we are wasting our time. This toxic culture of non-stop efficiency prevents us from being human - we are forced to act like machines, working non-stop, placing no emphasis on our mental and emotional needs as sensory and organic beings that physically cannot work up to Western capitalist standards. One video by The School of Life challenges our obsession with productivity by arguing for the importance of staring out the window, and I want to similarly argue why taking breaks isn't just helpful but fundamental in order to be able to function as a working human being.

I'm currently doing a Masters degree in literature at the University of Sheffield, and nobody told me I was going to feel the way that I do. I miss my old university almost every day, I can't find places to work, I am unmotivated to do anything about my assignments. And it seems like this is just masters degree culture - I will run into other masters degree students I know and we will ask how each other is. Both of us will shake our heads in horror - we aren't fine. Personally, I know that I have burnt myself out, but like some sort of demented broken car with it's wheels and doors falling off I am still managing to slowly roll towards my destination. No-one told me it was alright to have a break.

My third year of university was the most productive year of my life. I read around 70 physical books between September and June, both for my course and for pleasure, not counting the non-fiction and critical theory I read for my research. I wrote 9 essays, one being a 10,000-word dissertation I worked on for 8 months. During this time I would make myself wake up at 7am every morning and start reading, then I would spend the rest of the day researching, writing and studying. If I had nothing planned I would go to the library at 10am and stay there for around 6 hours, sometimes until as late as 6pm. In the evenings I would read books and articles on the sofa whilst I ate my dinner or watched TV. Then before bed I would read to wind down. I did this everyday for 8 months.

At the time it was fine - I was getting work done at an alarming rate, reading books fast and not seeming to suffer consequences. But what people don't really realise it that productivity and creativity come in cycles. On one end you can be constantly producing and creating things, and on the other you take a break and use it to absorb information, find inspiration and recharge yourself for another creative spout. In between are moments of transition, feelings of both motivation and tiredness. This span of 8 months was definitely a time of productivity, but I didn't give myself the break afterwards.

Once I handed in all of my assignments for third year I was happy to just be able to read whatever books I wanted to read. But my reading pace fell over the summer which upset me. I couldn't concentrate on a book. I would read ten pages and feel like I had to put it down, because I was feeling so mentally drained from the effort I put into third year that my body just wasn't ready to concentrate on reading again. But I couldn't go without reading, so I carried on reading all through the summer, at a very slow pace compared with other periods of my life, but I was still reading. I know my body was dying just to rest, and in a way it managed to get this for a few months.

I started a masters in September, itching to get back to academia again and feeling motivated to work. But summer hadn't been a long enough time to recover. Not at all. My close friend and I who moved to the university together ended our first day of seminars crying, telling our parents on the phone that we wanted to drop out. It got better, definitely, but there was such a lack of motivation to start anything, to read anything, to formulate new and exciting ideas because we just hadn't let ourselves level out from the intensity we'd put it through earlier that year.

I'm writing from a position now where I'd just had four days off because I've been ill. My head has been pounding, my eyes have been sore, I've had a fever and my brain has been foggy. We are coming up to assignment deadlines and I know I worked myself too hard this week and am feeling the physical effects of stress. I am a stressful person anyway, and previously have had physical stress symptoms to the point where I've skipped my period or started stuttering because I'm so wound up. But I hadn't been that ill for a while, not since my GCSEs where I was ill for an entire month during the exams, just because of how much mental pressure I put on myself.

There isn't an answer here. I can't give myself time off because I have deadlines to meet. I have another dissertation to produce at the end of August so can't let myself relax over the summer. But we need to start educating young academics about the harmful effects that work and stress can have on your body and why it's so important to look after your mind at a time when it is needed most.

I have been burnt out from this degree since about January, and a masters degree is such a step up from undergraduate there is an entirely new blog post to be written about that. But the culture of productivity we place on young people today, who work during weekends, who can't sleep, who pull all-nighters in the library, needs to be demolished. I love feeling productive and I loved how I felt the year that I got so any things done, but I am still feeling the effects of it a year on as I stare at a page of the book I've just been reading, unable to retain any information and unable to feel as though I can carry on reading.

You are allowed to take breaks and I encourage you to take them as often as you can. Humans can't function like machines and shouldn't be expected to. It's only through stepping back when you have the time and letting your mind be passive that you open yourself to the ideas and motivation you will need in the future.