How Most People Waste Their Time Off Adapted from Stillman, J. (Inc.com) So how was your holiday break? Did the time off

[correctanswer]

How Most People Waste Their Time
Off Adapted from Stillman, J.
(Inc.com)
So how was your holiday break? Did the time off
refresh you? Did you use your long weekend to the fullest? Are you
energized and ready to come back to work? Too often when
we return from vacation, our answers to these questions are
sadly negative. Either our time away flew by, or we somehow
manage to feel just as tense at the end of the break as we did at
the beginning. There has to be a better way. The problem is that
our instincts on how to best utilize our time off are often at odds
with the psychology of what actually refreshes the human brain. In
short: your desire to sit around doing as little as possible is
probably destroying your breaks.
Why your "relaxing" doesn't work
Many people prefer lazing around on their time off but according
to legendary psychologist
and Flow author Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, this sort of slothful "relaxation" actually
doesn't do much to reset and refresh your brain. "For quite a few
people free time is... wasted," claims Csikszentmihalyi. "Leisure
provides a relaxing respite from work, but it generally consists of
passively absorbing information, without using any skills or
exploring new opportunities for action. As a result life passes in
a sequence of boring and anxious experiences over which a person
has little control."
What should you do instead of binging on your favorite Netflix
show or relaxing in your friend's back garden? Csikszentmihalyi
insists that if you really want to refresh your mind, you need to
engage it. People are "happiest when they were just talking to one
another, when they gardened or were involved in a hobby," he
explains, citing his research and noting that all of these
activities "demand a relatively high investment of psychic energy."
So if you want your break to feel actually enjoyable and worthwhile
(and also longer -- laziness makes time feel like it passed in
the blink of an eye), you need to actually do something a little
challenging.
The limits of relaxing
It's not just Csikszentmihalyi who makes this point. Time use
expert Laura Vanderkam also agrees that the most refreshing
breaks aren't necessarily the most relaxing. "Other kinds
of work--be it exercise, a creative hobby, hands-on parenting, or
volunteering--will do more to preserve your zest for work
challenges than complete vegetation," she has written before
recommending that, if you really want to feel fully energized after
a break, you should proactively schedule challenging or engaging
activities rather than just planning to relax and take things the
days as they come.
How do you relax?
Introduction
Paragraphs 1-3
Why relaxing does not work
Paragraphs 1-4
Limits of Relaxing
Paragraphs 1-2