Q&A: How Much Should You Rest?
An explanation of the 42% rule in Burnout
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Here's a great question from two readers about Burnout and rest. Where do we get "The 42% Rule"? Amelia's answering this one!
Q: Hi Emily and Amelia, I’ve very much been enjoying your book, both as a psychologist and as the co-founder of a website that supports therapists' self-care. I was especially interested by your discussion of the 42% rule. However, I wasn't able to find any specific references in the book to the research that supports this. Would you be able to refer me to any relevant research? Thanks so much!
A: I was shocked to see that we didn’t have a citation for this number in the book, but then I remembered why.
In Chapter 3 of Burnout, we talk about how terrible all the research into “meaning” is, and create our own definition by finding the most common and salient features of the definitions that were implied by the research. We’re explicit that this is how we came up with the definition we use. “42%” comes from the same kind of process. So, basically, 42 is our number, distilled from the numbers in a wide diaspora of research into rest and sleep.
I’ll give you examples, but first I’ll recommend a resource to go deeper into the research that we run through in Burnout. That resource is the book Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less by Alex Soojun-Kim Pang (Basic Books, 2016).
I don’t love everything about it, because it still centers the conversation around productivity. Adequate rest is a human right being violated by white supremacist patriarchal moral judgements in service of late stage capitalism. Rest is a social justice issue, and needs to be framed that way in order to tell the real story of why it matters. But Rest covers the same science we do in Burnout, in much greater depth, and is a resource you could give your boss if you need to convince them that their exploitation of you is bad for their bottom line.
So here are some numbers. In Rest, Pang dedicated chapters to daydreaming AKA the Default Mode Network, sleep, naps, walking, more demanding exercise, and deep play (all of which we fly through in a single chapter!). He cites research and gives real life examples of how they work in the lives of people who have accomplished great things. He also spends a chapter talking about the most popular and possibly evidence-based work schedule: four hours, in the morning.
And that math adds up to:
8 hours of sleep
+ 45 minutes of physical activity
+ 20 minute nap
+ Short breaks for letting your mind wander
+ Intentionally doing things that use your mind differently than your primary work
Equals about ten hours, or 42%.
A lot of us don’t allow ourselves this much, but it sounds like an achievable goal, and is clearly supported by the evidence once your boil it down.
This is opposed to another set of numbers Pang uses, fleshing out the real story of the 10,000 hour rule popularized by Malcolm Gladwell. He points out that the research into the 10,000 hours also included the point that those “top performers” also took time for deliberate rest, so the real number of hours is:
10,000 hours of effort
+12,500 of deliberate rest
+ 30,000 hours of sleep
That equals 52,500 hours total, 80% of which is rest. And three times as much sleep as work!
Those numbers are intimidating and unhelpful. They sum up a percentage over the course of years, which isn’t useful information for anyone who is burned out right now and needs help ASAP. These numbers also don’t take into account the fact that we also need time to commute and file taxes and wash the dishes. So there’s just no way anyone is even going to think about spending 80% of their time “resting.”
My favorite set of numbers is the recommendation in the practice of Tai Chi that you use about 70% of your total capacity in order to receive the maximum benefit of your activity. If you push yourself to your limits, the strain on your body and mind will outpace their capacity to heal. This isn’t the conclusion of mere twentieth century research, but millennia of practice in Chinese medicine.
A great place to start to find out exactly how much rest you need is to find the pace where you can barely keep going – it might be the pace you’re going now – and call that 100%. Unsustainable, but survivable in the short term. Reduce your schedule to 70% of that. Replace the other 30% with deliberate rest.
The science and the ancient wisdom are helpful to balance voices telling you how little rest you deserve, when you’re allowed to have it, and how much you should sacrifice for others. But when it comes to practical advice, none of that matters.
There’s really only one way to know how much rest you need: listen to your body.
If you're enjoying Amelia's posts here, you can see more of her work on her Youtube channel and this recent interview on The Writing on My Mind podcast. Have a lovely weekend if at all possible!
You can listen to the interview here.
Questions or comments? Please email my very tiny team at unrulywellness@gmail.com
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Stay safe and see you next time.
