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First, our cognitive abilities do not remain static over the course of a day. During the sixteen or so hours we’re awake, they change—often in a regular, foreseeable manner. We are smarter, faster, dimmer, slower, more creative, and less creative in some parts of the day than others.
Second, these daily fluctuations are more extreme than we realize. “[T]he performance change between the daily high point and the daily low point can be equivalent to the effect on performance of drinking the legal limit of alcohol,” according to Russell Foster, a neuroscientist and chronobiologist at the University of Oxford.
Third, how we do depends on what we’re doing. “Perhaps the main conclusion to be drawn from studies on the effects of time of day on performance,” says British psychologist Simon Folkard, “is that the best time to perform a particular task depends on the nature of that task.”
Some have called this phenomenon the “inspiration paradox”—the idea that “innovation and creativity are greatest when we are not at our best, at least with respect to our circadian rhythms.”
Much of the research shows morning people to be pleasant, productive folks—“introverted, conscientious, agreeable, persistent, and emotionally stable” women and men who take initiative, suppress ugly impulses, and plan for the future.33 Morning types also tend to be high in positive affect—that is, many are as happy as larks.
In short, all of us experience the day in three stages—a peak, a trough, and a rebound.
In many cases, morning exercise may burn 20 percent more fat than later, post-food workouts.
Cardio workouts—swimming, running, even walking the dog—can elevate mood. When we exercise in the morning, we enjoy these effects all day. If you wait to exercise until the evening, you’ll end up sleeping through some of the good feelings.
Some studies suggest that we’re more likely to adhere to our workout routine when we do it in the morning.
Afternoons are the Bermuda Triangles of our days.
High performers, its research concludes, work for fifty-two minutes and then break for seventeen minutes.
Nature breaks may replenish us the most.
Should we all eat breakfast? The conventional view is a flaky and delicious yes. But as a leading British nutritionist and statistician says, “[T]he current state of scientific evidence means that, unfortunately, the simple answer is: I don’t know.”
The non–desk lunchers were better able to contend with workplace stress and showed less exhaustion and greater vigor not just during the remainder of the day but also a full one year later.
Not just any lunch will do, however. The most powerful lunch breaks have two key ingredients—autonomy and detachment. Autonomy—exercising some control over what you do, how you do it, when you do it, and whom you do it with—is critical for high performance, especially on complex tasks. But it’s equally crucial when we take breaks from complex tasks.
Detachment—both psychological and physical—is also critical. Staying focused on work during lunch, or even using one’s phone for social media, can intensify fatigue, according to multiple studies, but shifting one’s focus away from the office has the opposite effect.
Australian study published in the journal Sleep found that five-minute naps did little to reduce fatigue, increase vigor, or sharpen thinking. But ten-minute naps had positive effects that lasted nearly three hours. Slightly longer naps were also effective. But once the nap lasted beyond about the twenty-minute mark, our body and brain began to pay a price.
Lunches and naps help us elude the trough and get more and better work done in the afternoon. A growing body of science makes it clear: Breaks are not a sign of sloth but a sign of strength.
“Graduating from college in a bad economy has a long-run, negative impact on wages,” she writes. The unlucky graduates who’d begun their careers in a sluggish economy earned less straight out of school than the lucky ones like me who’d graduated in robust times—and it often took them two decades to catch up.
Shifting our focus—and giving when the same weight as what—won’t cure all our ills. But it’s a good beginning.
Call it the “uh-oh effect.” When we reach a midpoint, sometimes we slump, but other times we jump. A mental siren alerts us that we’ve squandered half of our time. That injects a healthy dose of stress—Uh-oh, we’re running out of time!—that revives our motivation and reshapes our strategy.
Older people have fewer total friends not because of circumstance but because they’ve begun a process of “active pruning, that is, removing peripheral partners with whom interactions are less emotionally meaningful.”
“Every Pixar movie has its protagonist achieving the goal he wants only to realize it is not what the protagonist needs. Typically, this leads the protagonist to let go of what he wants (a house, the Piston Cup, Andy) to get what he needs (a true yet unlikely companion; real friends; a lifetime together with friends).”33 Such emotional complexity turns out to be central to the most elevated endings.
If you dread the thought of being at your job on your next work anniversary, start looking now. You’ll be better prepared when the time comes.
If your job doesn’t provide both challenge and autonomy, and there’s nothing you can do to make things better, consider a move.
Ample research from many countries shows that when your individual goals align with those of your organization, you’re happier and more productive.4 So take a moment and list your top two or three goals for the next five years and ten years. If your current employer can help you reach them, great. If not, think about an ending.
