full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Rahaf Harfoush: How burnout makes us less creative

Unscramble the Blue Letters

But it's actually almost impossible for our brains to continuously generate new ideas with no rest. In fact, downtime is a nticessey for our brain to recover and to operate properly. Consider that according to a team of researchers from the uinitesrvy of Southern California, letting our minds wander is an essential mtneal sttae that hleps us develop our itientdy, process social interactions, and it even iufnlences our internal moral cosmpas. Our need for a break fiels in the face of our cultural nraavtrie about hustling, in other words, the stories that we as a society tell each other about what success looks like and what it takes to get there. Stories like the American Dream, which is one of our most deeply rooted beliefs. This tells us that if we work hard, we'll be successful. But there's a flip side. If you aren't successful, it must mean that you're not working hard enough. And if you don't think you're doing enough, of course you're going to stay late, pull all-nighters and push yourself hard even when you know better.

Open Cloze

But it's actually almost impossible for our brains to continuously generate new ideas with no rest. In fact, downtime is a _________ for our brain to recover and to operate properly. Consider that according to a team of researchers from the __________ of Southern California, letting our minds wander is an essential ______ _____ that _____ us develop our ________, process social interactions, and it even __________ our internal moral _______. Our need for a break _____ in the face of our cultural _________ about hustling, in other words, the stories that we as a society tell each other about what success looks like and what it takes to get there. Stories like the American Dream, which is one of our most deeply rooted beliefs. This tells us that if we work hard, we'll be successful. But there's a flip side. If you aren't successful, it must mean that you're not working hard enough. And if you don't think you're doing enough, of course you're going to stay late, pull all-nighters and push yourself hard even when you know better.

Solution

  1. narrative
  2. helps
  3. state
  4. necessity
  5. mental
  6. flies
  7. compass
  8. identity
  9. influences
  10. university

Original Text

But it's actually almost impossible for our brains to continuously generate new ideas with no rest. In fact, downtime is a necessity for our brain to recover and to operate properly. Consider that according to a team of researchers from the University of Southern California, letting our minds wander is an essential mental state that helps us develop our identity, process social interactions, and it even influences our internal moral compass. Our need for a break flies in the face of our cultural narrative about hustling, in other words, the stories that we as a society tell each other about what success looks like and what it takes to get there. Stories like the American Dream, which is one of our most deeply rooted beliefs. This tells us that if we work hard, we'll be successful. But there's a flip side. If you aren't successful, it must mean that you're not working hard enough. And if you don't think you're doing enough, of course you're going to stay late, pull all-nighters and push yourself hard even when you know better.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
creative work 3

Important Words

  1. american
  2. beliefs
  3. brain
  4. brains
  5. break
  6. california
  7. compass
  8. continuously
  9. cultural
  10. deeply
  11. develop
  12. downtime
  13. dream
  14. essential
  15. face
  16. fact
  17. flies
  18. flip
  19. generate
  20. hard
  21. helps
  22. hustling
  23. ideas
  24. identity
  25. impossible
  26. influences
  27. interactions
  28. internal
  29. late
  30. letting
  31. mental
  32. minds
  33. moral
  34. narrative
  35. necessity
  36. operate
  37. process
  38. properly
  39. pull
  40. push
  41. recover
  42. researchers
  43. rest
  44. rooted
  45. side
  46. social
  47. society
  48. southern
  49. state
  50. stay
  51. stories
  52. success
  53. successful
  54. takes
  55. team
  56. tells
  57. university
  58. wander
  59. words
  60. work
  61. working