First, do nothing

When there is nothing to do, but nothing, writes Liz Breslin.

Sitting at her kitchen table, a hot brew cupped in both hands. Back straight, looking out the window.

"What are you doing, Grandma?"

"Nothing."

My grandmother balanced a boarding-house business, sending secondhand clothes to church families overseas, daily visits to God in his fancy Catholic house and an active interest in family. Yet she seemed quite at peace just to sit, to be.

I don’t have her grace. I’m rubbish at un-doing. At being. But thanks to a recent fight with a concrete floor (no prizes for guessing the winner), I’ve been advised to do, or rather, not do, just that. For at least 20 minutes, twice a day. The patient woman from Concussion Services calls it taking brain breaks. It’s way harder than I thought, doing nothing.

And it irks me to have to schedule it. Like, because, I can do nothing. Of course I can. As long as it includes having a phone in my hand, or the radio on, or a small pile of things to fiddle with. Binge-watching four seasons of Orange is the New Black must surely count. Or reading. Reading is relaxing and that’s the same as doing nothing. Isn’t it? No? Oh. OK.

Reading, apparently, uses quite a lot of complex eye-brain action. The words go through the cornea and the lens and get laser-beamed by various photoreceptor rods and cones on to the retina, which then reverses what it sees and has a sci-fi shootout around the brain to translate it into the magic of book travel. Sort of. It makes me tired just thinking about it. As for TV, LCD screens do this constant flickering, which we don’t know we’re seeing, but we are. Which is a big strain on the eye/brain combo. But OITNB has been totally worth it. I know, I’m so behind the times with telly, but I haven’t had, or taken the time, for a long time, to just sit and watch.

In a nod to my grandmother, I decide to do brain breaks with cups of tea. Sunglasses on, for filtering visual stimulus, rather than rock-star value. I set an alarm, to count 20 minutes. (Because if I did nothing for 22 minutes, there would be two whole minutes utterly wasted.) The idea is just to zone out. Be aware of the flax swaying, the clock ticking, the shelf that needs tidying. Make like the Frozen song and let it go. Curse at having the Frozen song stuck in your head. Let that go too.

First few times, I take a cheeky peek at the timer every three or four minutes. Then I can go 10 minutes. And now easily peasily 20 or more, being a being. The tea, when I get to drink it, is tepid at best.

Buddha’s always been on to this as a good thing: there is strength in the will to resist busyness. And now business is recognising the benefits, too. There’s research to show that rest and boredom increase creativity. And there’s a theory that periods of doing less make high-flying executives who can afford to schedule relaxation alongside regular massages and Instagrammable visits to dog-shampooing services more productive in the long run. I don’t have a dog. Or that sort of lifestyle. And anyway, with all this brain-breaking, one thing I’ve noticed is that busy can be competitive, self-perpetuating and bothersome.

I’ve realised I don’t want to buy into the idea that if I increase my productivity (even by seemingly doing less), eat the requisite amount of suspect chia-seed goop and work myself into a sweaty lather 30 minutes a day, life will go on getting better and brighter ad infinitum. Do more, be more, do more, be more. I was cruising that loop (minus the chia seeds) before I got rudely interrupted by that concrete floor.

Of course it’s relatively easy to disrupt my do/be pattern over a summer spent on a no-road-access WiFi-free beach. And still, guttingly, quite necessary. I sometimes even need a brain break from fishing. Which I thought was close to doing nothing. Not even. There’s a lot of brainwork involved in the balance necessary to enjoy staying upright on a boat. Pretty crucial things, brains. Best kept away from concrete floors.

Still, if I was home I could definitely convince myself of the necessity of doing 13 meaningful things before breakfast; so, in a way, this holiday is one great big brain break. I wonder how strongly I’ll be able to resist the lure of overachievement once I get back. I’m itching to start using my favourite Christmas present, a hot pink, gold-rimmed list pad, titled "I’ve got SOOOOO much to do."