Sensory rest

Screens, notifications, open-plan noise, bright light, back-to-back video calls. Sensory input is relentless and rarely counted as work, yet it exhausts people who cannot name why they feel frayed by four o'clock.

The tell is irritability out of proportion to events: a loud room becomes unbearable, a message ping feels like an intrusion, you want to be left alone rather than comforted.

The remedy is deliberately dull. Close your eyes for sixty seconds. Step outside without your phone. Turn the overhead light off. One meal without a screen in front of you.

Today: take one intentional sensory gap — eyes shut, no input — between two tasks. Sixty seconds is enough to be worth doing.