I find the examples of rest periods abound when you go looking. Strength training, for example, is now known to need periodization to stop the overtrain-and-cr

I find the examples of rest periods abound when you go looking. Strength training, for example, is now known to need periodization to stop the overtrain-and-crash cycle, but periodizing well means letting go of days where you feel great and could do a million reps because you need to accommodate longer term fatigue. Renowned artists often engage in regular periods of "automatic drawing" (scribbling on the page without imagining or observing a specific image) as a way of giving their minds a break from structured practice, allowing raw imagination and muscle memory to present itself. Something astonishingly common in the diaries of creative people is lengthy days-to-weeks periods of total inactivity, bookended by maniac phases of high output. Often the inactivity phase consists of hyperfocus on something a bit trivial like playing billiards or visiting the movie theater five nights in a row.