Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you
You don't need more coffee, you need more rest
🏷️ Categories: Creativity, Attention.
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
When I read that phrase by writer Anne Lamott, it sounded like an obvious truth and, at the same time, a revelation. Of course a computer starts working again after crashing and showing the infamous “This page is not responding” message. The same goes for a phone. But what about us? How many times have we pushed forward while feeling fragile and exhausted, as if we were robots that would never break?
The body has an obvious language.
When we’re hungry, the stomach growls.
When we’re exhausted, our eyelids feel heavy.
When we’re cold, we shiver.
The brain, on the other hand, withers in silence.
Apathy replaces the spark that once filled us with excitement.
Mental fog turns everything into an uphill battle.
We open social media with no curiosity, just as anesthesia.
And because there are no growls or shivers, we misinterpret the signals. We torment ourselves with guilt and pressure, draining every last drop of energy without admitting we’ve already hit bottom.
One day, we find ourselves empty.
The uncomfortable truth is this: we’ve turned rest into a reward that only comes after exhausting ourselves. As if stopping were a luxury. When in fact it’s the opposite: rest is the starting condition for every form of creation.
Without rest there is no perspective.
Without rest there is no creativity.
Without rest, everything collapses.
Without rest, everything collapses.
Byung-Chul Han said it in The Burnout Society: we live trapped in a culture that motivates us to self-exploit so others will validate us. It makes us compete at the expense of our health and sleep, measuring our worth in productivity, as if life were a contest to see which robot is the most efficient.
Fatigue isn’t just physical: it’s existential.
We’ve forgotten the importance of contemplation, slowness, and silence. These aren’t whims. Perpetual action drains us—and if you add information overload to that… The average person consumes 35 GB of information per day (Bohn & Short, 2012).
Just think of your mind as a library, and you’ll see how insane that number is.
Every day, dozens of books arrive (emails, messages, the content you consume, ideas, worries…). There’s no time to organize or read everything, so we stack them in the hallways. At first it seems manageable, but soon more and more books pile up, until the towers block the passage. The shelves bend, books fall, and papers fly everywhere. Finding something valuable becomes impossible.
That’s an overloaded mind, in a rhythm we cynically call “normal.”
A mind without pause—cluttered, collapsed, unable to access what matters because everything is buried under excess data, and drained by endless activity. Giving time to silence is like reordering that library. It’s filtering the important from the urgent, and removing everything that doesn’t deserve even a second of our attention.
And the cruelest thing about not resting is that we lose the day’s opportunities.
The conversation that could have deepened and become fruitful.
The idea that could have turned into a passionate project.
The fleeting moment that slipped away because we weren’t present.
If you don’t rest, you’re not here. If you’re not here, you’re not.
The worst part is we don’t even notice, because the mind doesn’t growl like an empty stomach. It shuts down silently, until it withers.
The good news is that nurturing it doesn’t require grand gestures. The food for a tired mind is within our reach every day.
Not looking at your phone after waking up and postponing it until 10 or 11 a.m.
A walk without headphones, letting your thoughts wander.
A slow reading, extracting keys from each paragraph.
Watching a komorebi and resting your eyes from screens.
Small daily gestures that dissipate mental fog.
Science confirms it: without cognitive rest, our memory weakens, our attention scatters (Goleman, 2013). We need more hours in “lighthouse mode” to be able to focus when it really matters. Creativity dies of starvation when we don’t give ourselves breaks, and life becomes doing without being.
Autopilot, some would call it.
As I walk every day after writing, I realize how vital that “non-productive” moment is. It’s in those low-stimulation moments that the mind is nourished and blooms. I’m not talking about food, but about silence, about not rushing, and perceiving beauty in the slow details that unfold before our senses.
As I walk every day after writing, I realize how vital that “non-productive” moment is. It’s in those moments that the mind is nourished. I’m not talking about food, but about silence, about not rushing, and perceiving beauty in the slow details that enter through our senses.
Keep it simple: surrender to calm.
Turn off your phone for a while, breathe deeply, and let your steps carry you aimlessly. The mind doesn’t make noise like the stomach, but if we listen carefully, it always tells us what it needs. Listen to it.
Rest is not a luxury.
3 letters for those who want to go deeper into this:
Walking as a Creative Refuge: Philosophy of Slowness for a Fast World
The Day There Was No News: The True Cost of Staying Informed
✍️ Your turn: What small gesture or habit can you add today to let your mind rest?
💭 Quote of the Day: “Slow down. Stop trying to do everything now, now, now. Keep your pace. Don’t let anyone else dictate your speed.” — Cecelia Ahern, Thanks for the Memories
See you next time! 👋
Referencias 📚
Bohn, R. E., y Short, J. E. (2012). Measuring Consumer Information. International Journal Of Communication, 6, 980-1000. URL
Goleman, D. (2013). Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence.
Lamott, A. (2019). Almost Everything: Notes on Hope.
This is such a critically important article, Alvaro. I want to share it with my daughter, who is in middle-age working mom overload right now. But! Will she read it? Will she find time and space in her frenetic, hictic life, to sit down and read it. Granted, the children are at daycare, so there's that load off her day. I'll give it a go and see what happens. (breathe) Maybe it will encourage her and her equally "busy" husband to turn off the TV and not rely on it for creating a "buzz zone." ZZZZZZZZZ Mindless entertainment doesn't callm and regenerate the mind. (I'm rambling. Sorry.)