When you link a task, you don't want to do!

It changes whether you stimulate reward centres or pain centres in the brain. When we resent something, we naturally stimulate our pain centres, which changes our emotional state and the blood flow to different regions of the brain – blood and energy is prioritised for your muscles.

This so-called sympathetic nervous system in our brain and body has been designed, evolutionary, for us to escape the predators. But it doesn’t know the difference between a predator and a difficult work task. And when it’s stimulated, the blood vessels in the smartest centres of the brain, called the prefrontal cortex, are contracted so that actually the smartest cognitive centres don’t get as much glucose and oxygen, so they can’t function optimally.

In contrast, when we stimulate the reward system of the brain, it naturally stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system (responsible for rest and digestion), which is crucial for being creative, empathic and for brain plasticity to be taking place. In that state, our performance is greatly enhanced.

A good rule of thumb is having at least one break an hour and a half. Every 90 minutes, take a 15-minute break. For some people, this is too long – so they might work for 45 minutes and take a five to 10 minute break. It depends on your own individual preferences.

As the day goes by, severa...