What overwork takes from us

Deoné Duffy
May 17
5 min read

Updated: May 18

On rest, the default mode network, and the capacity we are losing

What does it take to change the course of history?

History is full of Eureka moments. Those historical and pivotal moments that changed the trajectory of human living. These moments may be less mysterious than we once thought. Perhaps, they can be cultivated. Perhaps we can even structure our lives in a way that we create conditions for more of these moments to occur.

We can also, and in fact do, live in ways that make it less likely that we'll experience many of these moments.

A professionally dressed woman sits alone on a park bench, gazing into the distance, surrounded by trees. She is still and unhurried, not looking at a phone or engaged in any task.

What if overwork is our biggest barrier to insight and innovation?

In my latest read, The Brain at Rest by Dr Joseph Jebelli, he frames overwork as a progressive condition that damages the very regions our brain needs for decision-making, problem-solving, planning, attention, judgement, assessment of long-term consequences and memory formation. He argues that overwork damages these regions of our brain. The ones best placed to help us make the types of decisions that would prevent and protect us from further damage. Putting us in somewhat of a self-defeating loop of brain degradation.

Two important brain networks – in simple terms

Our executive network is responsible for goal-oriented, cognitively demanding tasks and this network includes our lateral prefrontal cortex (and other regions).

Our default mode network is responsible for things like future planning, creative insight and problem solving, meaning-making, moral social and emotional reasoning, consolidating learning and reflection. And in this network the medial prefrontal cortex plays a core role as well as the hippocampus (best known for memory formation).

You may have noticed that our frontal cortex features in both our executive and default mode network.

What overwork does to these networks

Jebelli calls out how overwork thins the frontal cortex (ageing the brain) and causes dendrite loss. Dendrite loss means that neurons are less connected and so communication between cells and neurons decreases. Dendrite recovery is possible, but recovery rate is slower than loss rate and needs specific low stress and restful conditions. The point being, overwork damages our brain in a way that is not simple (nor impossible) to recover from.

It is useful to pause here and understand what Jebelli thinks of as “work”.

Overwork is not restricted to those who work 12-16 hour days. Rather one should think of work as any activity that activates our executive network. “Work” in this context then, is anything that needs our focus and attention. So, activities like watching Netflix, according to Jebelli, would fall into this category because it stimulates our executive network.

Rest is not just recovery. It is also work we have forgotten how to do.

What is new to me in Jebelli’s argument is that he takes rest beyond a restorative idea. It becomes an activity that is critical for performance not because it rejuvenates but because it adds something in and of itself. Rest is not merely an activity that stores up energy for the work that comes later, it is a form of work that we underutilise. And if we continue to underutilise it our ability, and the abilities of those around us, to solve, plan, apply judgement and think about the longer term is at risk. This is because the DMN activates specifically in these rest-like states, and not when we are focused. Look again at the list of things the DMN is responsible for. Look at what we are compromising on by spending disproportionate amounts of time on productivity and busyness.

Future planning, creative insight and problem solving, meaning-making, moral reasoning, consolidating learning and reflection.

Knowing this is not the issue, doing different is the challenge

I believe we’ve come to a point where there is ample evidence to support that the way we live, work and sleep is harming us and the quality of our existence. But it is not easy to shift the way we live and work because of this information. Doing so asks so much of us. Not just of us as individuals, but us as a society. It challenges the very way in which we’ve set up how we do things day-to-day on a fundamental level.

So, even as we begin to familiarise ourselves with knowledge and evidence that supports the value of rest and activities that feel unproductive (think mind-wandering, play, watching people or birds, drinking a cup of tea in silence in your garden) but are crucial to our work and creativity, we find ourselves in an incredibly tricky space. A space where it seems near impossible to implement the recommendations because the systems around us just do not support or value it on an intrinsic level.

Jebelli’s book gives a few examples of how one can activate the DMN: through activities like mind-wandering, times in nature, solitude, sleep, play, exercise (active rest) and just doing nothing.

What would it look like if we took this seriously?

For me, the big transformation moment will be when employers get this. I mean really get this.

When 3-4 hours of personally chosen DMN activating activities become expected, standard, even mandated as necessary for performance and creativity. When it becomes completely normal to spend only 4-5 hours on what we have come to know as work.

Critically, I am not suggesting that we only work for four hours and then pack the rest of our day full of other activities that demand focus and attention. What we need to do is replace some of the task- and goal-oriented hours with activities that activate the DMN. Activities that we have come to know as idleness, as time-wasting. These activities can be interspersed in the workday, they could be after a focus block, they should be personalised. They should be protected.

Because it is in these moments that our work problems will get solved, where we might find that we can do in 10 minutes what we couldn’t do in an hour of actively trying to solve something.

What stops us?

Why are employers not at least piloting what days could look like if we take this seriously? I mean, thinking bigger than the 4-day work week trial. Something that lets go of the idea that 7-8 hours of work is necessary to qualify for a full day’s salary. Something that values these moments that birth creativity and insight as much, if not more than, the hours spent grinding.

I think it is because it feels so foreign. I think it is because we fear it, we fear it being true, we fear what it might mean for how we need to change and what we might become when we do. We fear it, not because it is bad, but because it is unknown and it might bring into question the things we have valued for a lifetime.

That is hard, because we like to believe that we do things well and we do not like to acknowledge that another way would have been better.

Though a valid response, I am not sure the response is enough of a reason to keep going. I think the stakes are higher than we realise.

If what Jebelli is arguing is correct, we have built ways of life that progressively reduce the capacity of people inside these systems to see that things need to change. It happens gradually and collectively and because of this, it looks normal and acceptable. And my worry is that most of our influential decision makers have little choice but to adopt this way of working. Initially, possibly, as a means to an end. But what do they lose as a result, and what do we, as a society, lose as a consequence?

Neuroconnectedness: Thought to feeling. Body to brain. Me to you. Us to our systems.

About the Author

Deoné Duffy smiling with their chin resting on their hand against a light background.

Deoné Duffy is a coach and speaker who works with individuals, leaders and organisations who are ready to ask difficult questions, think differently and do differently.

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