Rest and Creative Idleness
We often forget to slow down, and in doing so miss out on the important benefits that we get from taking the time to rest in our lives.
Articles:
- Creative Idleness, by Lisa Laughman. Tips for increasing Creative Idleness in your day to day life.
Books:
- Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. Overwork is the new normal. Rest, from sleep to vacation, Silicon Valley futurist and business consultant Alex Soojung-Kim Pang dispels the myth that the harder we work the better the outcome. He combines rigorous scientific research with a rich array of examples of writers, painters, and thinkers---from Darwin to Stephen King---to challenge our tendency to see work and relaxation as antithetical. "Deliberate rest," as Pang calls it, is the true key to productivity, and will give us more energy, sharper ideas, and a better life. Rest offers a roadmap to rediscovering the importance of rest in our lives, and a convincing argument that we need to relax more if we actually want to get more done.
- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's famous investigations of "optimal experience" have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow. During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life. In this new edition of his groundbreaking classic work, Csikszentmihalyi ("the leading researcher into ‘flow states’" —Newsweek) demonstrates the ways this positive state can be controlled, not just left to chance. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience teaches how, by ordering the information that enters our consciousness, we can discover true happiness, unlock our potential, and greatly improve the quality of our lives.
- Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, by Stuart Brown and Christopher Vaughan. From a leading expert, a groundbreaking book on the science of play, and its essential role in fueling our happiness and intelligence throughout our lives. We’ve all seen the happiness on the face of a child while playing in the school yard. Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless, all-consuming, and fun. But as Dr. Stuart Brown illustrates, play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep or nutrition. We are designed by nature to flourish through play. Dr. Brown has spent his career studying animal behavior and conducting more than six-thousand “play histories” of humans from all walks of life-from serial murderers to Nobel Prize winners. Backed by the latest research, Play explains why play is essential to our social skills, adaptability, intelligence, creativity, ability to problem solve and more. Particularly in tough times, we need to play more than ever, as it’s the very means by which we prepare for the unexpected, search out new solutions, and remain optimistic. A fascinating blend of cutting-edge neuroscience, biology, psychology, social science, and inspiring human stories of the transformative power of play, this book proves why play just might be the most important work we can ever do.
- The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success, by Emma Seppala. In The Happiness Track, founder of Fulfillment Daily and science director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University Emma Seppälä draws upon the latest scientific research on resilience, willpower, compassion, positive stress, creativity, and mindfulness to reveal the connection between happiness and success, and how to achieve both. Featuring practical strategies we can use in our daily lives, The Happiness Track will show you the fulfilling, rewarding, and anxiety-free life that is within your reach.
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