How can you take a break without feeling guilty?

How can you take a break without feeling guilty?

We’d love to tell you today that we’ve found the perfect recipe for feeling less guilty about being tired during the day. A kind of Chicken broth for fatigue or an infallible Ricardo recipe (the best!).

Unfortunately, such a culinary art does not yet exist.

The guilt of taking breaks during our working hours doesn’t seem to dissolve in the pot of time, even if a good company culture has been put in place.

Certain beliefs taint the way we perceive breaks and rest.

Stubborn beliefs that don’t go away with a stroke of the Tide to gosuch as:

• My colleagues will judge me if I take a break.
• I’ll take a rest while I’m on vacation (or when I’m dead).
• Just one more week of intense effort, and then I promise to slow down.

Changing our way of thinking takes time.

Above all, it takes more than a promising article that hands you “5 foolproof tools for taking a guilt-free break” on a silver platter, with no thought behind it.

So today, instead of promising you a simple 5-step recipe, let’s instead take the time to reflect on what may be preventing us from building a healthier relationship with the break at work.

Our guilt-inducing beliefs about taking a break

Taking a break means losing work time :

We often have this idea that more hours spent at work = more work accomplished. We know the equation isn’t that simple. And yet, sitting in front of your screen, exhausted or unfocused, sometimes seems more acceptable than taking 15-20 minutes to relax.

This is one of the pitfalls of presenteeism: being there without actually being effective.

We understand rationally that nobody can be productive 100% of the time for a full 8-hour day. We wouldn’t give our colleagues and teams that kind of stress. But when it comes to ourselves, it’s a different story.

We put ourselves under enormous pressure not to stop, as if every minute had to be justified. For ourselves, not for others.

What if we learned to be as kind to ourselves as we are to others?

Fear of judgment :

“If I take a break, people will think I’m not working hard enough.”

This thinking is deeply rooted, especially in environments where performance is still measured by time spent in front of the screen rather than the quality of the work accomplished. The way others look at us influences our habits more than we realize.

In fact, one of the first comments we receive when installing a cabin is always the same: “Will my employer know if I’m using it?” We take the time to reassure the team every time: the confidentiality of reservations is guaranteed.

This concern speaks volumes about our collective sense of guilt about taking a break. Before we even consider the benefits it could have on our well-being at work, the first reaction is often fear of how others will look at us.

The illusion of constant productivity :

We tend to believe that our attention span should be constant throughout the day. But our bodies and minds don’t work that way.

Instead of listening to these signals, we try to ignore them. We fight fatigue with yet another cup of coffee and force ourselves to stay focused at all costs. But forcing ourselves doesn’t mean progress. Our performance shouldn’t be measured by the time we spend fighting fatigue, but by the quality of what we achieve when we’re really at our best.

An overloaded mind inevitably becomes less efficient, less creative, less able to retain information and accumulates errors.

What if we stopped feeling guilty about these natural energy dips? What if we saw them instead as precious indicators?

And where does the infamous laziness fit in?

Isn’t that where the guilt comes from? Fear of being lazy?

Laziness has long been seen as a sin in Western societies, and remains widely associated with a negative connotation throughout the world.

Laziness, doing nothing, pauses and siestas don’t have to slow us down. They can even become allies in our quest for performance. They can become tools that help us move forward.

When you create mental space,

When we unclog our work schedule,

When you stop constantly acting with urgency,

We’re finally turning our attention to other ways of thinking, creating, sharing and solving problems.

That’s why we need to work on taking our breaks guilt-free.

We need to name the shame we may feel when faced with the need to take a moment alone.

So as not to be alone.

To normalize, one pause at a time, the need to slow down.

So that collectively, we can finally let go of the old beliefs that slow us down at work.