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Taking a break is often seen as a weakness, an unnecessary downtime before we power through again. But research shows that breaks are just as important for the brain as practice in learning a new skill. Learn here why brain breaks are key to avoid cognitive fatigue and why children need them to effectively learn new skills.
Consolidation of human skill linked to waking hippocampo-neocortical replay
Practice makes perfect. It’s active, repeated manipulation of material that lays the foundation for skill development so it is widely considered that only hard work will make us excel. Breaks, on the other hand, are thought to be in the way of this by pausing the learning process. But the study of Buch et al. says otherwise.
The neuroscientists used magnetoencephalography to scan the brain of young adults learning to type with their non-dominant hand. While observing the neural activity during the practice session and the short break in-between, they made an unexpected discovery: Brain activity spiked not only during the practice session, but also during the break. While the participants took a break, their brains remained active, flipping the material from the neocortex, where sensory and motor skills are processed, to the hippocampus, the brain’s memory centre, over two dozen times in the span of 10 seconds.
Downtime is necessary to process the learning material
When we learn a new skill, we need to connect it to the previous memories. After learning new information our brain uses the cognitive downtime to process, organise, and integrate this into a consolidated skill. This is called neural replay: Our brain rapidly cycles through the new information, compresses it, and optimises our storage repeatedly – a phenomenon that was already discovered in a research paper from 2001.
Brain breaks should be taken before fatigue, boredom, distraction, and inattention set in. This does not only consolidate the new knowledge, but also prevent cognitive fatigue. Normally, our brain has to work harder to concentrate the later in the day it is or the longer the learning phase prolongs. Taking breaks in between, however, counteracts this and increases the overall performance.
Children benefit from breaks in the classroom and during homework
Regular breaks throughout the day can increase the productivity of students and provide children with the opportunity to be creative and more social. Especially elementary school children often struggle with staying focused for long periods of time, which is why some teachers already implement shorter lessons and allow down-time in between. The goal of this is not only to achieve higher productivity, but also to improve general well-being by reducing stress, allowing creative ideas, and giving the opportunity to socialise with peers.
Breaks can be taken in various ways, they can be creative, calming, social, or physically active. They can also be used to reflect on one’s emotions and inner thought processes. Incorporate practices of the Anxiety Coach or Resilience In Your Teens in your brain breaks and guide your children, teenagers, or students to belly breathing and emotional self-regulation.
Cell Reports. (2021, June 8). Consolidation of human skill linked to waking hippocampo-neocortical replay. https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(21)00539-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2211124721005398%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
MIT News. (2002, May 18). Rats dream about their tasks during slow wave sleep. https://news.mit.edu/2002/dreams
Economic Sciences. (2016, February 16). Cognitive fatigue influences students’ performance on standardized tests. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1516947113
The European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction - EARLI. (2016, August). Off-task behavior in elementary school children. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959475216300275#!