Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

Today’s a good day to consider the brain’s response to leisure … in spite of work that piles up on the side. It’s Friday … there's too much to be done here at the MITA brain Based Renewal Center … and I'm golfing in a big tournament an hour’s drive from here …  at 1:00 PM. In addition I bought a time share in Florida last year and plan to use it for a few rounds of golf again this winter… unless a hurricane takes it out this month. How about you? What do you do to play and relax?

Interesting research supports you next gameDr. Geoffrey Godbey ...  professor of leisure studies at Penn State University ... wrote the  book  "Leisure in your Life" to show how people do different things on vacation.  The best vacations often come with less TV, more exercise, better communication, and new learning.

Leisure helps you to recover focus and so you return to work rewired for better brain based outcomes. According to some experts you need at least two weeks of vacation in order to refresh your emotional resources and avoid burnout. What do you think?

Dr. Godbey suggests that leisure should not be too short, but neither should it be too long, if you want to return with increased productivity. He shared a story about three months spent in … after which it seemed his workplace was moving far faster than he moved. I'm not sure if he golfed there or not... but that could have added to the differences....

Yet... why do so few people seem to benefit from leisure time that reboots their brains? Dr. Godbey says the problem is not necessarily that we don't have enough free time, but the problem lies in how that free time is structured.

If you're like most of us… free time on weekdays comes in blocks of an hour or two. That space is long enough to catch a TV show or read the newspaper … but certainly not for a golf game. And weekends are often too crowded on the links to play a good game.

Vacation time that benefits your brain … according to Godbey "… is the truly memorable experience that changes the way people see the world, changes the way people see each other... and you can't get that in a couple of hours on Wednesday."

It’s for that reason that I often break to golf during the workday … and then I tend to catch up on work that evening. Now that I think of it … I am more refreshed after golf ... when I get a good score on the links…. Hopefully today will be one such occasion! How about you?