Pause and Reset: More Than Just 3 Words

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It seems that ever since we were hit with the pandemic, the need to pause and reset has taken on new importance. In closer provenance to our daily collective awareness, pausing is not just a choice, but a necessity across a variety of clinical and nonclinical settings alike. Surrounded by the harrowing months of COVID, with uncertainty and all the enforced restrictions (an era that we are now hopefully moving past), reset stories have miraculously surfaced.

During those days, reinvention occurred at various levels and in all kinds of ways—taking up music, engaging in a new craft, studying a second language, and becoming even more heroic and effective in performing one’s day job, or pivoting to a new opportunity. Despite the challenges, this was also a time of incredible fortitude and resilience.

The phrase—to pause and reset—is rather intriguing. In its infinite permanence and wisdom, it conveys many positive meanings, depending, of course, on the context. First, there are the well documented cognitive enhancements of taking a break. Some of these benefits include maintaining one’s focus, maintaining task steadiness, increasing work productivity, and downregulating the negative rumination of anxiety, a truly exhausting state of mind.

Then there is the power of pausing during speech, so basic as to be possibly overlooked. Some of the most skilled presenters understand the value of “the pregnant pause,” receiving due recognition from others through their skillful and well paced communication style.

According to Joel Schwartzberg, a communication coach, “Pausing [in speech] creates small but powerful moments of drama and suspense…few audiences respond to presentations or a meeting share by saying the speaker ‘paused too much.’ This is because pausing—a moment of nothingness…is hard to remember, let alone criticize.”

Schwartzberg suggests eliminating empty verbal fillers, referred to as crutch words, like “um” and “ah,” instead opting for the reliable pause to hold the listeners’ attention.¹ I am honestly not certain that any of us are quite that verbally disciplined, but maybe so. In any case, this is a compelling reiteration of an early learned teaching principle: think before you speak.

There is also the physical dimension inherent in taking a pause—that of stress reduction—simply by adding on a full inhale and exhale. By way of review, the full breath cycle regulates the parasympathetic nervous system in conjunction with the vagus nerve.

Vagal stimulation, in turn, can reduce serum cortisol levels and the overall degree of physical tension, serving as an antidote to sympathomimetic overstimulation. You are now just deep breaths away from lowering your heart rate, improving your mood, and promoting a sense of wellbeing. People who practice yoga and meditation know this; they likely experience these benefits on a regular basis.

When we think of pause and reset, we often think of taking a rest from the normal daily routine, and, for some, the daily grind. That little respite can involve anything from sitting in a quiet, 5 minute pose to planning an elaborate getaway or reunion. The key objective throughout is to expand the mind-body space and promote emotional replenishment.

For Suzanne Farrell, former principal ballet dancer with the New York City Ballet and now visiting artistic instructor and ballet coach, pause and reset is as vital a component of dance as are the specific ballet movements. She recently quoted her late mentor and choreographer, George Balanchine, as follows: “On the eighth count, he made [the student dancers taking class] stay still…And he said ‘silence is a beautiful thing.’ And it is. Especially in this day and age. Silence has volume. Silence has a sound. It’s the absence of movement, but it’s the presence of everything else.”² I would second this notion. Perhaps you, as well.

In conclusion, what ultimately inspired me to write this column, aside from the fact that we are now in the midst of summer, the ultimate season of pause and reset, was an anecdote from my psychiatric training which appears in my memoir.

There, in Chapter 2, I recall observing that “a few masterful, well timed questions and pauses could peel back layers of obscurity to form an alliance with the healthy and narrative part of the patient’s psyche.” I was obviously struck by my professor’s astute interviewing skills and their capacity to draw out each patient. As seasoned professionals, these teachers understood the importance of never rushing the patient, but, instead, giving the patient time and space to pause and reset, to develop their story, and to begin the often lengthy process of healing.

Dr Sofair is a practicing psychiatrist and the author of The Beauty World Through The Lens of A Psychiatrist.

References

1. 9 surprising ways you can benefit from a pause. August 2023. Accessed July 14, 2025. https://www.toastmasters.org/magazine/magazine-issues/2023/aug/power-pauses.

2. Kourlas G. Once an inspiration to Balanchine, Suzanne Farell now shows the way. May 5, 2025. Accessed July 14, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/arts/dance/suzanne-farrell-coaching-new-york-city-ballet.html.