About career break in CV
I suspect that the intent of the question is to have you explain things that you did completely unrelated to your career and to your field. As such, the things you describe don't seem to qualify. I don't think they are necessarily asking about breaks in your academic progress (time between degrees), but they might be interested in that. 

But the sorts of things you did prior to the doctorate would seem, to me, to be supportive of your case for the position and so should be mentioned somehow in your CV whether in this "section" or just in a narrative. 

Some people need to take a career break to care for an ailing parent or child, for example, or because they are in jail (oops). In such breaks it may be impossible to do much professionally. Those need to be explained if they last more than a few months.