We are navigating a silent, profound redefinition of what it means to work, lead, and live. In this hyper-accelerated era, we are flooded with endless streams of content, notifications, and automated drafts. We are constantly informed, but are we still thinking?

By trying to match machine speed, we are pushing the human operating system to its absolute limit — a tension I explored while recently moderating a panel with three researchers on the subject. We face a converging storm: overwhelming data volume, always-on intake, the cognitive tax of context-switching, and “AI sycophancy”—where tools are engineered to agree with us rather than push us. To survive this, we crave cognitive counterweights: deliberate synthesis, ruthless prioritization, and active recovery. Staying pace in this environment requires far more than a “moment” for mental health.

The scale of this digital deluge is staggering. Dr. Gloria Mark of UC Irvine, author of Attention Span, found that screen attention spans have plummeted from 2.5 minutes in 2004 to just 47 seconds today. This is not a failure of personal willpower; it is a structural crisis with a measurable cost. Within the Microsoft 365 suite alone, workers are interrupted every two minutes. Microsoft’s Alexia Cambon calls this a constant “consumption tax.” These constant interruptions wear down our goal-oriented minds, forcing us into rapid attention-switching that spikes stress and drives errors.

The risk isn’t the technology itself; it is our desperate pressure to match its speed. Driven by “productivity guilt,” we use AI to churn out highly polished but low-value communications—doing “more” simply because we can. This loop traps us, backfilling saved time with even more low-value complexity rather than freeing up space for deep thinking.

Used well, AI frees us for deeper work, but the courage to make creative leaps must still come from us. Innovation requires creative friction—people disagreeing, debating, and pushing boundaries. This is the exact opposite of an AI engineered to make us feel, as Cambon notes, “nice and comfy and cozy.”

Moving Fast and Fixing Things

The old innovation playbook of “move fast and break things” is broken. Anne Morriss, co-author of Move Fast and Fix Things, argues that the old way is:

“Not good for people. It’s not actually good for business… [it leads to] more rework, more unhappy customers, fewer people bought in. So, when we talk about how to get this right, we talk about moving fast and fixing things.”

To protect our stamina, leaders must intentionally build a counterweight to modern speed. High-trust, high-functioning organizations deliberately slow down at critical moments. As Morriss observes:

“It’s called good friction… You can go as fast as the amount of trust that you have built… The Navy SEALs have a mantra that I love: slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.”

This distinction is what separates mere management from true leadership. We must set deliberate, not default, priorities and give them our undivided presence. To navigate this acceleration, leadership must shift from rigid hierarchies to horizontal agility—partnering across boundaries to follow the fluid flow of value. Let AI carry the speed of synthesis so humans can bring the depth of judgment.

Furthermore, our most vital qualities—critical thinking, curiosity, creativity, and focus—are products of time and space, not speed. Deep thinking requires “cognitive slack”; without it, we default to pattern recognition instead of original thought. Even Albert Einstein famously sat in quiet rooms for hours staring at the ceiling, knowing his breakthroughs came from stillness, not the rush of the laboratory.

To build intellectual stamina, we must treat our minds like elite athletes, recognizing that peak performance demands deliberate recovery. This requires what Dr. Mark calls yohaku no bi—the Japanese expression for the beauty of empty space:

“To really be able to shine, to do our best work, we have to give ourselves space.”

Writing an Alternative Story

How we frame this shift matters. Cambon found that mandated “AI-first” processes actually make employees eight times more likely to produce no work at all. The better path treats technology as an invitation to “co-build, co-produce, and co-innovate.” Crucially, Morriss urges leaders to reject an automated, anxious future:

“We have to tell an alternative story — not just the downside and the anxiety of this revolution, but also what could happen…”

For the first time in history, five generations are navigating a workplace transition together. We have a unique opportunity to pair the wonder of youth with the wisdom of experience. True leadership is about consciously preserving the space where original human thought can breathe, connect, and thrive. When managing our work, our teams, our autonomous agents, and our days, we must protect not only the quality of our output, but also the quality of our lives.

As leaders and teammates, we must start with individual actions to reclaim this space. Personally, I have committed to an “analog hour”: handwritten notes, reading on paper, and walking without headphones.

You can also take Anne Morriss’s practical advice:

“Call a friend or loved one on your way to work, or on your way into your home office, and remind yourself who you are outside of that work identity — which… will help you put boundaries around work in a much more productive way.”

Protecting your intellectual stamina is a personal practice, but it also requires collective action. This month, Project Healthy Minds—the leading mental health tech nonprofit expanding access to services across the U.S.—launched the Project Healthy Minds Workforce Lab.

This is a first-of-its-kind coalition of global organizations, scholars, and thought leaders working to expand the evidence base for “what works” in workforce mental health. I am proud to co-chair the Lab alongside Jacqui Canney, Chief People & AI Enablement Officer of ServiceNow.

Together, we are designing the playbook for a future where technology amplifies human potential without exhausting human capacity. We invite you to join us in this critical work—because in an era of machine speed, the ultimate competitive advantage is human depth.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.