Overwork is making us sick — here's how to rest your brain

Times

3 hours ago

As I was reading The Brain at Rest, about the cognitive benefits of doing nothing, I was reminded of a comedy sketch that was doing the rounds on social media last year. In it, the American-Irish stand-up Des Bishop fondly recalls how 'mindful' life was before smartphones. Remember, he says, how much of our lives was spent just waiting — for people to show up, for a video to rewind, for a bus to arrive. 'We were mindful half of every f***ing day because we didn't have a choice!' he concluded. 'I didn't realise I was like a f***ing guru before I got a cellphone.'
I have a feeling that the British neuroscientist Joseph Jebelli, 39, would enjoy this sketch. He is a fan of just staring out the window on the bus — not to mention hugging trees and meandering through forests with no real agenda except to discover the 'soft fascinations' that plants and flowers can offer. He takes long baths and daily naps. He lies in bed — his 'sleep temple' — daydreaming and only surfaces when he feels rested. He even plays 30 minutes of computer games each day.
Even better, he has overcome any guilt associated with idleness. He claims that working only four to six hours a day with frequent breaks has transformed his life and enlarged his brain, enabling him to think in completely new ways.
Jebelli is not alone in making claims for the productive powers of idleness — see also business gurus like Fergus O'Connell (The Power of Doing Less, 2013) and activists like Evie Muir (Radical Rest, 2024). But he does bring some scientific rigour to the subject, having written books on Alzheimer's and brain evolution.
It's all about activating the 'default network', the circuit of neurons that enables us to daydream, think reflectively and imagine the future (as opposed to the 'executive network' that we use to complete specific tasks). The default network fans out across the brain, occupying the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes. It's active only when our minds can roam free.
Jebelli explains how he used to put in long hours at the University of Washington until he began to understand that the default network is really 'your brain's hidden superpower' and that accessing it can 'enhance your intelligence, creativity, social empathy and long-term productivity'.
Overwork is the monster Jebelli is determined to 'slay'. He cites Roger Federer's 12 hours of sleep each night (plus two hours of naps) and Maria Carey's 15. He rails against the capitalist imperatives of relentless labour, as well as the pressure to socialise. 'We're trapped in a self-erected maze of commitments, missing the beauty and insight beyond its boundaries,' he says, urging the reader to embrace activities like staring into space for 20 minutes. 'Boredom remains one of the most misunderstood and wrongly disparaged mental states.'
He wants to reframe boredom as an opportunity for discovery and invention, and overwork as a 'pandemic' that's killing us. 'The scariest thing about the work pandemic is that, unlike other pandemics caused by viruses and bacteria, there is no means of contact-tracing, no methodical approach to the control and spread of the infection. We are all carriers. We are all at risk.'
If this sounds hysterically alarmist, it's backed up by some hair-raising stats. The World Health Organisation has called long working hours 'the single deadliest occupational risk factor'. Jebelli says our culture of overwork cost Britain £20.7 billion in 2022 from workers going off sick with everything from cases of stress, depression or anxiety to work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Millennials are the worst affected generation: 58 per cent of us overwork, apparently, compared with 31 per cent of baby boomers. These figures represent a 38 per cent increase since 2019, which is worrying.
Jebelli urges readers to prioritise sustained wellbeing over 'short-term productivity' and recognise the early warning signs of work burnout. He runs through all the stages, which will feel distressingly familiar to anyone who has experienced it: a subtle feeling of dissatisfaction, followed by stress and emotional exhaustion, that quickly leads to cynicism.
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'Next comes dehumanisation,' he warns, which manifests as an 'emotional hardening' towards your colleagues. You start complaining about everything, which leads to irrational worry and a 'heavy, suffocating feeling of dread'. Your mind stores feelings of guilt, hopelessness and incompetence that you wear 'like a skin'. Then the most alarming sentence: 'Once it sets in, it can take up to three years to recover.'
In the case of Jebelli's father, Abolfazl, though, it's probably too late. As with his 2017 book, In Pursuit of Memory — in which Jebelli described his grandfather's struggle with Alzheimer's — this book is fuelled by a painful personal narrative, in this case what Jebelli calls his family's 'toxic relationship with work' since they emigrated from Iran to England in the early 1980s.
It's a classic immigrant story: the family threw themselves into jobs of 'soul-crushing monotony' to make the family back home feel proud. For Abolfazl, who worked long hours in an office, 'this new world was efficient, yes, but desolate'. One day, after he came home shouting, he quit his job and never went back. He was diagnosed with a major depressive disorder and hasn't worked since. He now sleeps most of the day.
The pressure has fallen on Jebelli's 68-year-old mother, who runs a day care centre but suffers from diminished sight and dangerously high blood pressure that she never has time to address. It's a continuing source of anguish for Jebelli, who insists that the sacrifices they have made on their health are 'not in vain, for it taught me the value of rest'. He struggles with a 'debilitating' anxiety disorder', alleviated by embracing the Dutch art of niksen, a verb that literally means 'to nothing'. He doesn't just stare into space. He forest bathes (walks in the woods), goes for long runs, finds solitude in ten-day solo retreats in remote cabins and plays a fair bit of Mario Kart and zombie shooter games.
Still, there are several moments when Jebelli's assertions seem more borne of personal preference than actual research. I don't believe that computer games are better for your health than socialising (an 'unhealthy obsession' of the modern world, he believes). Similarly, he conflates scrolling TikTok with watching a TV show on Netflix, which is apparently full of 'complex storylines' and 'moral dilemmas', which overtaxes your brain. I'd be interested in seeing him go head to head with the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, the author of The Anxious Generation, on this one. 'Here's what's really bad,' Haidt has said. 'iPad time by yourself. It's solitary.'
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Nor does Jebelli address the gendered nature of rest. Women at work who slack off face far more stigma. In my present co-working space, I have a running joke with my male colleagues — or 'leisure dads' as I've dubbed them — about their hour-long lunch breaks in the park and 11.30am starts after a rock climbing session.
But perhaps we could all learn from the leisure dad class. I don't see them suffering from burnout. The revolution has to start somewhere and I think Jebelli's spotlighting of the cognitive benefits is supremely helpful. For all my niggles, The Brain at Rest is inspiring and practical and, I hope, signals a wider change in how we think about work. 'We need to set firm boundaries so that saying 'no' becomes a respected choice, not a sign of weakness, a mark of wisdom, not a failure.'
The Brain at Rest: Why Doing Nothing Can Change Your Life by Dr Joseph Jebelli (Torva £20 pp256). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
1. Walk slowly through a forest. This helps to improve our creativity and problem-solving abilities. While you're there, hug a tree, which reduces cortisol and activates your brain's default network.
2. Listen to sad music. Not only does it improve your mood, it's also associated with stronger mind wandering, which can enhance your intelligence, creativity, social empathy and emotional processing.
3. Try to nap for 30 minutes daily. It reduces stress, regenerates damaged brain cells and makes your brain bigger. One study suggests that nappers' brains are 15 cubic centimetres larger.