Intermission

In a culture obsessed with long-form productivity—endless meetings, marathon email threads, and the worship of deep work—interruption is treated like a dirty word. But it turns out, those little mental chuckles, doodle breaks, and “what if” rabbit holes? They’re pure gold. We call it Intermission—a moment to disengage, to play, to spot patterns—and it’s increasingly essential in the adult creative toolkit.

The dominant narrative paints play as a luxury for kids. Once you’re grown, you’re meant to grind. Leisure equals guilt. Yet neuroscience and psychology knock this down. The National Institute for Play emphasises that adult play—anything from crafts to games—reduces cortisol, strengthens creativity, and improves social bonds National Institute for Play. Oxford’s recent Frontiers in Education review highlights how play-based learning in adulthood sparks wonder, choice, and richer cognitive patterns, not just for kids but for grown minds too Journal of Play in Adulthood Durham Cognitive Health Centre ScienceDirect

At the Creative Women’s Association, we see Intermission as essential brain hygiene, not fluff. It’s that pocket of creativity that suddenly connects the dots in your mind: the spark of insight that slips through when you’re dancing around the kitchen mid-email. Pattern‑spotting—the art of noticing recurring shapes, words, rhythms in your day—is cognitive training in disguise. It’s the muscle that transforms raw experience into insight and invention.

Reimagine your day’s design: sprinkle micro‑plays—five minutes of improv, a quick puzzle, even sketching a pattern you notice. Set up “pattern journals” or voice memos: note when an idea echoes back, when a lyric repeats, when a color palette recurs. Let them accumulate. Those little fragments are seeds. Corporate giants like Google and IDEO know this, building playful spaces not for pleasure, but for pattern-breaking breakthroughs WIREDcambridgeshireinsight.org.uk.

When we normalize play in adult life, we recalibrate our brains. We de-clog our creativity circuits. We rewild our cognitive space. An International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research study found play boosts cognitive flexibility, emotional resilience, neuroplasticity, and motivation—exactly the assets adult creatives need IJFMR. Meanwhile, psychology expert Dr. Ellen Park points out our evolutionary play system is hard‑wired into adulthood, beneath inhibitions, ready to break tension and restore balance Durham Cognitive Health Centre Psychology Today National Institute for Play

So what if play became a creative ritual, not an afterthought? What if launching a project began with pattern‑spotting your week’s five snippets? What if teams met for 10 minutes of collective play before diving into strategy? That’s how cultural breakthroughs happen—not by force, but by opening space for them. That’s how flow surfaces: during intermission.

Engaging with Intermission isn’t undoing work—it’s multiplying it. It’s the creative reset that refuels your mind, reconnects you with your pattern-sense, and enables divergent thinking. It’s radical self-care. Then, with fresh insight and levity, you return—refreshed, alert, alive—ready to lead, create, and innovate.