I didn’t blog this when it came out last month, but New Scientist reviewed Rest in its October 26 issue:

This is a paean to a balanced life in which he argues that work and rest are not opposing forces, but an essential, reciprocal partnership.

With an emphasis on rest’s benefits for the creative mind, Pang proposes that it has a place in our lives as a learned skill – one that must be honed and tended to just as we would practise a musical instrument or train for a marathon….

[O]ne of Rest’s most interesting revelations is the potential importance of the default mode network: a series of interconnected areas of the brain that automatically switch on as soon as we cease to concentrate on external tasks. Although this has only been an active area of research since the 1990s, studies indicate that this network may have a vast influence on our inner lives, being implicated in everything from memory to cognitive impairment and empathy. This “resting state” is barely less energetic than the engaged brain.

We can have a sardonic approach to the idea of “deliberate rest”, and heading back to bed for an hour after lunch like President Kennedy may not be a viable solution for many of us. But next time you’re caught staring into space, it is worth remembering that you are actually exercising vital neural networks.

The review is a good one: it’s critical about some parts of the book, but it does a good job of explaining what it tries to do, and pairing it with the Rest and its Discontents exhibit was nice.