Why You're Always Tired Even When You 'Take Breaks'

You finally get 10 minutes to yourself, so you reach for your phone. The work day finally ends, so you grab the remote and sit down on the couch. The weekend arrives, and you decide to use your free time catching up on emails or scrolling through your feeds. This is what we've come to call "taking a break." But you're still tired, unsettled, and never really feel refreshed after these instances. So what gives?

This isn't an article about how your phone is evil and you should never look at a screen. But there's a fundamental mismatch between the kind of rest that we need and the kind that we actually give ourselves.

True rest and recovery involves a freely floating mind. Scrolling on your phone, answering emails, any sort of passive consumption; none of these tax us in the same way that our daily responsibilities do, so they feel like rest. But the truth is that they're actually preventing full recovery.

So what do you do instead? Try one of these today:

1. Take a walk without your phone. Walking boosts creative thinking by 40-60%, and it's the "freely floating mind" in action. Let yourself be bored.

2. Try other forms of light physical activity: swimming, yoga, cycling. It's so basic, I know, but the trick is that once you get into the flow and shift your attention from your thoughts to your body, things start to change. You don't have to make it hard or think of it as a "workout." Just go through the motions and let your mind take over.

3. See friends or do something social that actively takes you away from screens or stressors and forces you to be in the present moment.

4. Don't underestimate the power of being in nature. It's probably one of the most powerful ways to access true rest. Easier said than done if you live somewhere with harsh winters like I do, but don't let that be an excuse — even slipping outside for 5 minutes helps (phone-free, of course).

5. Stop trying to earn your rest. You don't wait until you're dehydrated to drink water. Schedule recovery into your week instead of treating it as a reward for finishing everything (you never will). Take weekend sabbaths, such as going phone-free for a day. The world won't end.

6. Savor the good stuff on purpose. We don't automatically benefit from good moments, so we have to deliberately pause and take them in. 15 seconds. That's it.

I know that this advice isn't groundbreaking, but the power comes in the implementation. No advice, no matter how profound, matters unless you apply it.

So this week, notice when you reach for your phone out of habit, and when you catch yourself, try one of these instead, or come up with your own!