Brain Break Time

This weekend we learned about the importance of brain breaks. These usually aren't employed very often in high school because we assume our students' brains don't need them! We are so focused on pounding them with content we forget that they are 16 year olds in adult looking bodies.
Today I did a simple one: After doing a short reading at their own pace, I told my students to put their heads down and close their eyes until the whole class was complete with the task. They all did it no questions asked! To bring them back into the lesson I gently started talking until all heads were up. We then had a low-key discussion regarding the reading. I think it's really important to give students at this level a break because they are secretly not as developed as we think they are.