An opinion piece by Patrícia Oliveira-Silva, a lecturer at the Faculty of Education and Psychology at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa and director of the Human Neurobehavioral Laboratory, one of the four research and community outreach units of CEDH.
“With the end of the holidays, a subtle feeling of unease emerges. No, it's not laziness, it's just your brain doing what it needs to do. I assure you as a neuroscientist that it's pure neurophysiology.
Today, thanks to neuroscience, we know that during rest, the mind doesn't 'switch off,' as is often thought. On the contrary, the brain's resting mode, or Default Mode Network, comes into play. Far from being a mere whim, mental rest activates a brain mechanism when we allow ourselves to daydream—not as a distraction, but out of a physiological need to reorganise memories and emotions. It's in this state that, paradoxically, the brain helps us consolidate what we've learned, metabolise more intense emotions, and even offers us the clarity we so often seek for making difficult decisions. Active rest, the kind where the mind wanders, is essential for integrating memories and giving meaning to experiences. But the modern imperative of productivity has led us to confuse constant movement with achievement and effectiveness. Science tells us something else: we don't just rest to recover physical energy. We also rest to give coherence to what we feel and experience".
