I have always found it easier to work than to stop working. For years, I wore being busy almost as a badge of honour. There was always another email to answer, another meeting to attend, another paper to read, another deadline to meet, or another person who needed something from me. Even when I was physically exhausted, my mind would continue working. Rest often felt like something I had to earn rather than something I was entitled to.

I have come to realise that I am, quite simply, a workaholic. If I am being completely honest, I blame myself for that. Not because working hard is a bad thing. Commitment, ambition and a strong work ethic are qualities I value deeply, and my work has given me purpose, opportunities to learn, relationships with wonderful people and the satisfaction of seeing ideas become reality. However, somewhere along the way, working hard stopped being something I did and became something that defined me. That distinction matters because when our identity becomes closely connected to what we achieve, taking a break can feel strangely uncomfortable.

You begin to equate stopping with being unproductive. You tell yourself that other people are working, so you should be working too. You convince yourself that you will rest when the project is finished, when the semester ends, when the report is submitted, or when the current crisis is over. The problem is that there is always another project, another semester, another report and another crisis. There is always something that needs attention, and if we wait for everything to be finished before allowing ourselves to rest, we may never actually stop.

Learning to take a break therefore requires more than simply finding an empty hour in the diary. It requires a change in mindset. A break is not a failure to work; it is part of working well. We understand this principle in almost every other area of life. We do not expect a muscle to exercise continuously without recovery, nor do we expect a car to run indefinitely without fuel or maintenance. Yet we can expect our own minds and bodies to keep performing indefinitely, often while carrying enormous responsibilities and pressures.

Perhaps part of the problem is that modern working culture has made exhaustion look like commitment. We celebrate the person who answers emails at midnight, admire the colleague who never takes leave and praise those who are constantly available. We sometimes even feel guilty when we are the ones who switch off. I know this because I have done it myself. I have worked when I should have rested, answered messages when I should have put my phone away, continued thinking about work long after the working day had ended and allowed my mind to remain permanently connected to the next task. Then I wondered why I was tired.

The irony is that not taking breaks can eventually make us less effective. Fatigue affects concentration, creativity, decision-making, patience and emotional regulation. When we are constantly operating at full capacity, we leave ourselves very little space to think, reflect or simply be. A tired mind is not necessarily a productive mind. Sometimes, stepping away from a problem gives us the perspective that we could not find while staring at it for hours. A conversation, a walk, a quiet cup of coffee or even a good night's sleep can achieve what another two hours of forced concentration cannot.

Taking a break does not necessarily mean going on holiday or disappearing for a week. It can be much smaller and much more ordinary. It can mean having lunch without looking at a screen, going for a walk without taking a work call, sitting quietly with a cup of coffee, leaving the office at a reasonable time, taking annual leave without secretly checking emails, or spending an evening with family without mentally preparing tomorrow's presentation. These small acts of disengagement matter because they allow our minds to move away from constant problem-solving and remind us that life exists beyond our work.

Most importantly, we need to recognise that a break does not have to be justified by exhaustion. We should not have to wait until our bodies are screaming at us, our patience has disappeared or we can no longer concentrate before deciding that we need to stop. Rest should be preventative, not merely a response to collapse. The same way we maintain something before it breaks down, we need to protect our own physical and mental resources before they become depleted.

This can be particularly difficult for people who are used to being responsible for others. When colleagues, students, employees, family members or organisations depend on us, it can feel selfish to step away. There is often an assumption that being responsible means being constantly available. However, there is a difference between being responsible and believing that everything depends on us. Learning to take a break also means learning to trust other people. It means accepting that things can continue without us for a while and understanding that being needed is not the same as being indispensable.

Perhaps the hardest lesson for me has been recognising that I cannot blame my circumstances entirely for becoming a workaholic. There are demanding environments, genuine pressures and responsibilities that cannot simply be ignored. Nevertheless, I have also made choices. I have chosen to say yes when I could have said no. I have chosen to keep going when I could have stopped. I have chosen, at times, to measure my days by what I accomplished rather than by whether I actually lived them.

Recognising that is uncomfortable, but it is also empowering. If I helped create the pattern, I can begin to change it. Taking responsibility does not mean criticising myself for having ambition or caring deeply about my work. It means acknowledging that I need boundaries. It means accepting that my value is not determined by how much I accomplish in a day and that I do not have to prove my commitment by exhausting myself.

Taking a break is therefore not about becoming less ambitious. It is about becoming more sustainable. Rest supports productivity, while distance can provide perspective and time away from work can restore creativity. More importantly, taking a break reminds us that we are more than our job titles, our responsibilities, our achievements and our inboxes. We are people with relationships, interests, bodies that need care, minds that need quiet and lives that deserve to be experienced rather than postponed.

I am still learning how to do this. For someone who has spent years believing that stopping means there is something else that should be getting done, learning to pause can be surprisingly difficult. Yet perhaps that is precisely why it matters. There will always be another email, another meeting, another deadline and another problem waiting for our attention. If we make rest dependent on everything being finished, we will never rest at all. Sometimes, knowing how to take a break means accepting that the work can wait, because our lives cannot.