What You Do Outside of Work Matters

And now to the big one: letting go of work itself. As much as those people on Twitter with tens of thousands of followers and verified accounts are telling you to keep hustling, to be on top of your game, and perhaps even wake up at 4:00 a.m. in order to be as successful as the world’s richest CEOs, don’t be fooled: they’re just trying to sell you something. You need to look after yourself.

In this chapter we’ve already covered a myriad of ways in which letting go can benefit you: from delegation, to not worrying about outcomes that you can’t control, to better managing your capacity, and also by creating the conditions for your R-mode brain to discover new connections, patterns, and innovations.

However, all of these are just techniques for you while you’re at work. You also need to make sure that you’re looking after yourself after work. We’re only on this planet for a certain amount of time, and that time is fleeting. Work is a part of life. But many other important parts get neglected at the expense of work: through working long hours, to being unable to stop those thoughts about that annoying conversation spinning around your head all evening, through to—in the worst case—the recovery time needed after burning out. You need to look after yourself.

Statistics from 2017 [Mur18] show that about 13% of the global population (around 971 million people) suffer from some kind of mental disorder. Just under 300 million suffer from anxiety, around 160 million suffer a major depressive disorder, and 100 million experience a milder form of depression called dysthymia.^[7]

In addition to these medical conditions, burn-out was included in the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases in 2019 as an occupational phenomenon.^[8] They describe burn-out as a “syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

Burn-out manifests as:

• Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion.

• Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job.

• Reduced professional efficacy.

Clearly, we need to take this seriously so we reduce our chances of burn-out and mental health issues. The good news is that the way in which we need to look after ourselves is simple to understand. The bad news is that we have an industry, culture, and society that is making it harder to do so.

If you do think that you are suffering from a mental illness such as depression, anxiety, or both, then you should talk to somebody about your feelings. It isn’t a sign of weakness. Dealing with existing mental health issues is beyond the scope of this book, but you should talk to your partner, friends, family, your manager, your HR department, or seek advice from a mental health practitioner or therapist. More people do this than you think. I had a particularly difficult couple of years in which I was supported by people in all of these roles. Those that didn’t know I was going through it had no idea.

You can do many things for yourself that can positively contribute to your mental well-being. Those are straightforward suggestions that we definitely can cover in this book.

We’re going to look at:

• Getting enough sleep. The biggest predictor of whether or not you’re going to have a good day is the amount of sleep you’re getting. We’ll look at why and at some techniques that you can use to improve your sleeping habits.

• Getting regular exercise. Humans haven’t evolved to sit at a desk all day. We need to move around as well. We’ll look at some simple ways to integrate some movement into your day.

• Being present in the moment. We continually live in the past and the future but increasingly find it hard to give our undivided attention to this moment, right now. We’ll see how you can train this muscle.

You’ve got to manage yourself to manage others well. Let’s start by looking at sleep.

The Importance of Sleep

If there’s one thing that you take away from this chapter, it’s that you should be, as much as possible, getting eight hours of sleep every night. A good night’s sleep is the most reliable way of ensuring that you approach the next work day in a calm, thoughtful, and cognitively balanced manner.

Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep [Wal17] highlights the critical importance of sleep in humans. Even though studies have shown that insufficient sleep results in reduced concentration and cognitive performance and an increased risk of neurological and psychiatric conditions such as Alzheimer’s, strokes, chronic pain, and mental health issues, we routinely do not get enough. In fact, our habits are getting worse. Were you watching videos on your phone last night in bed before you went to sleep?

A startling correlation has shown that the shorter your sleep, the shorter your lifespan. Getting a proper amount of sleep carries the following benefits:

• Improved motor skills, notably in speed and accuracy.
• Increased time to physical exhaustion and increased aerobic output.
• More stable emotional states.
• Improved immune system function.
• Improved R-mode activity and, as a result, increased creativity.

You’re in an industry where it’s critical to be able to continually learn new skills. Professor Walker explains that it isn’t just practice that makes perfect: practice and a good night’s sleep makes perfect. Subjects who have just learned a skill have been measured as being 20–30% better at the skills after sleeping when compared to measurements after the learning session the day before. As he puts it: sleep is the best legal performance-enhancing drug that we have.

There’s no such thing as catching up on sleep either. Studies have shown that humans can’t counteract a week of poor sleep by sleeping more on the weekend. Sleep is a one-time offer. You lose it, you lose out. (New parents, caregivers, or those with sick children, loved ones, or pets: I’m sorry. I know you can only do your best to get enough sleep in times of need. In these situations you are sacrificing your own sleep for the benefit of others, which is clearly the greater good.)

So what are some practical things that you can do to improve your sleep?

• Limit your caffeine consumption. Caffeine blocks the receptors in your brain that tell you that you need to sleep, pushing you to stay alert when your body really needs you to sleep. If you can’t go cold turkey with coffee, then try and only drink it in the morning.

• Limit your alcohol consumption. Although the “nightcap”—a late-night alcoholic drink to help you sleep—may have entered societal lore, it actually makes your sleep worse. Although it may help you lose consciousness, it doesn’t allow you to have good sleep. Nights after drinking alcohol are fragmented by frequent periods of waking up that are so small that they’re not committed to memory. You’ll wake up feeling tired and unrefreshed.

• Keep your gadgets away from the bedroom. Using phones, laptops, and tablets in bed will extend the amount of time that your body takes to release melatonin by up to 50%. You’ll be on a neighboring time zone before you know it.

• Have a cool bedroom. A cooler core body temperature helps you sleep well. Keep your bedroom at around 65 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal sleep conditions. A hot bath doesn’t make you sleepy because you’re hot afterward; it’s because the heat moves your blood closer to your skin, which means you cool down quicker, ready for sleep.

• Don’t exercise too close to bed. Exercise is great for helping you sleep better, but not when you do it only a few hours before bed. It’ll keep you awake.

• Try to sleep and wake at the same times each day. Have a sleep routine and a sleep schedule. Set yourself up for success by forming a habit. Slowly wind down your day, put your devices aside, stop checking messages and notifications, and go and get comfortable.

If you could improve your performance tomorrow by doing one thing, wouldn’t you do it? Go and get a good night’s sleep. Let go of wanting to fill every waking hour with productivity. You steal from the future to do more in the present. More sleep will make you better in life and work, and it may help you live longer too.

Moving Your Body

Humans have not evolved to spend their entire day sitting. In fact, studies have proven [Kut13] that it isn’t good for us at all. However, as a society, we seem to love sitting down. We get out of bed, sit while commuting, sit at our desks all day, sit down on the commute home, and then spend the evening sitting on the sofa. This is bad for our physical and mental health, which not only affects our performance at work—it affects the entirety of our lives.

But the good news is that we don’t need to drastically change our lives to get the exercise that we need. You can hold off on ordering those sweatbands and spandex leotards for now. You don’t even need a gym membership. You can begin with small steps and work toward larger goals iteratively.

• Consider walking or cycling to work. Not only is it beneficial to the environment, you’ll get a load of beneficial exercise done without needing to specifically allocate the time.

• Move for five minutes every hour. Just get up from your desk and go for a little walk. Do a lap around the office, or if you’re working at home, be creative.

• Turn sitting meetings into walking meetings. Why not do your one-to-ones while taking a walk? The act of walking has been shown [OS14] to increase creative thinking, is meaningful exercise, and also gives you more to look at than the meeting room wall.

• Slowly build toward bigger things. As you do more walking, or more cycling, you’ll begin to feel the positive benefits. You’ll sleep better, you’ll feel more relaxed, and you’ll benefit from those endorphins. Think about ways in which you can keep adding more movement into your life. Perhaps you could give running a go. Maybe you’d like to have a go at lifting weights or joining an exercise class. Either way, it’s all good. Just keep moving and doing what you enjoy.

Like sleeping, exercise is nature’s way of helping you get stronger, and it also positively affects your mental health by releasing endorphins. Get on board. Let go of your chair, no matter how comfortable it is. Consciously build in more movement into your day. Get your blood pumping. You’ll feel sharper and happier.

The Only Moment That Matters Is Now

Our Stoic friend Epictetus (remember him?) stated that some things are up to us and some things are not up to us. Stoics, partly for rational reasons and partly as a product of their time, believed in fate. From the ancient Greek myths, fate was represented by the Three Fates: Clotho, who spun the thread of life, Lachesis, who measured it, and Atropos, who cut it. Ancient Greeks believed that our destinies were already mapped out for us, thus reducing the need to worry about all of the eventualities of life. Modern religions have similar parallels, where there’s a belief that one’s inevitable life trajectory is in the hands of one or more deities.

One interpretation of this fatalism advocates for being fatalistic with respect to the past—whatever has happened has happened and cannot be changed—and also to the present moment. It may be possible to perform actions that affect the future, but the present moment is by definition already happening, so we’re merely an observer.

This has a relation to how Zen Buddhism treats the present. In fact, Buddhists, and more increasingly the secular West, have been learning about the concept of mindfulness. Jon Kabat-Zinn is considered to be responsible for the popularization of Western mindfulness throughout the past few decades; not through marketing, but through science. His seminal book, Full Catastrophe Living [Kab13], outlines the work done at the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The eight-week course was a supplement for patients with chronic pain, terminal illnesses, and disabilities. It’s meditation and mindfulness with the Buddhism taken out of it: no religion required.

The main components of this course are simple mindful breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, and body scan techniques: all things that you can do in the peace of your own home for free. Two decades of research have shown [Sre05] that those that regularly practice mindfulness techniques have:

• Lasting decreases in physical and psychological symptoms.
• An increased ability to relax.
• Reduced pain levels and improved ability to cope with lasting pain.
• Greater energy and enthusiasm for life.
• Improved self-esteem.
• An ability to cope more effectively with stressful situations.

Not bad for a few simple exercises. A wealth of information is out there for you to learn about applying these mindfulness techniques. A good beginner’s guide is Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go, There You Are [Kab16]. To get started though, why don’t we quickly do something together?