Imagine yourself in front of a challenging issue at work, and after spending the last ten minutes hunching over your desk and trying to think of a solution, you’re at a loss.
How do you go about things?
The response to this query would be straightforward if you were Steve Jobs. You would take a walk after getting up.
According to Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson, “having a serious conversation was his preferred way of taking a long walk.” The renowned designer Jony Ives remarked, “So much of our time together was spent quietly walking.” You will discover that Jobs spends a lot of time walking around barefoot if you read any biography or book about him.
Jobs’s incessant wandering was motivated by more than just a passion for the great outdoors and exercise. Neuroscience is now confirming what the late Apple CEO suspected: walking improves brain function slightly and can help you solve problems that were difficult for you to solve while seated.
For this reason, at least one contemporary neurologist suggests that we all adopt Steve Jobs’ 10-minute rule: get up and take a walk if, after ten minutes, you still haven’t figured out a difficult mental puzzle.
The brain is not a muscle.
Author of Hyperefficient: Optimize Your Brain to Transform the Way You Work and neuroscientist trained at the University of Cambridge, Mithu Storoni, offers this advice. She discusses a number of tips, such as the 10-minute rule, to help your brain function more effectively in a recent episode of the HBR IdeaCast podcast.
“I have some clients, and… one managing director has adopted a rule of, if he’s sitting in front of his computer with a problem that he hasn’t managed to solve for 10 minutes, he leaves his desk, he goes for a walk,” Storoni adds.
She emphasizes that brains are not like muscles. If you work a physically demanding profession, such as installing widgets on an assembly line, you can simply force your muscles to work until they are tired. In general, greater effort yields greater outcomes.
However, this more-is-more mentality frequently backfires in situations where our brains are used more than our bodies. Sure, head-down concentration is usually optimal for mundane tasks. To power through emails, creativity is not required. Simply take a seat at your desk and finish it.
But whenever you need to solve an issue or come up with a new idea, you need to be in a more relaxed, open frame of mind where your mind can find new connections and ways around hurdles. Long stretches of time spent struggling only result in frustration rather than epiphanies.
According to Storoni, we should guide our minds into the ideal condition so that creative solutions can emerge rather than attempting to push ideas.
Why is there a 10-minute rule that improves brain function?
How might walking after ten minutes of mental turbulence and giving up help you become in the correct frame of mind to solve the problem?
As Storoni points out, the way your body moves affects the way your mind works. Some neuroscientists assert that this realization can also assist you in resolving long-standing disputes.
“Walking puts you in the proper alert mental state, preventing you from just nodding off, falling asleep, feeling drowsy, or looking at your phone,” according to research. However, it also keeps your mind active, as you are unable to focus on anything while you are walking because your surroundings are always changing.
As a result, it enters your thoughts, investigates your issues, and looks for several solutions,” the speaker claims.
You are forced to consider a lot of novel ideas when you walk. However, it also prevents you from dwelling on a particular concept excessively.
“You can’t ruminate, because your attention can’t stick to one problem for too long because you also have to pay attention to where you’re walking,” Storoni says.
Walking involves moving over the landscape with your body while keeping a low awareness of your surroundings to avoid potholes and streetlights. This also invites your mind to focus lightly on the different concepts and thoughts that are going through it.
And as it happens, that’s the perfect frame of mind for creativity.
Great minds concur.
You may listen to the entire episode to learn more about the physiological aspects of all of this, including the neurotransmitters and brain functions at play. If your primary worry about the 10-minute rule is its efficacy, Jobs’s achievements ought to assuage your concerns.
So too should the numerous other well-known intellectuals who said that walking made them smarter and more creative, such Charles Darwin and Mark Zuckerberg.
Scientific and biographical data both suggest that you should get up from your desk and go for a stroll if you’ve been working on a difficult topic for longer than ten minutes.
(Tashia Bernardus)