The Most Effective Way to Take a Break at Work

Some people have a relentless drive to work all the time. They’ll work through lunch breaks, stay late at the office, and even bring projects home to finish.

For most of us, though, we can’t wait for that next break. It signals a brief time where we can eat, socialize, refresh, and mentally reset.

We want to make the most of our sweet, but short breaks from that endless work. But have you ever wondered if you’re really making the most of your breaks?

You would think that the productivity researchers and scientists would have figured out how to take effective breaks a long time ago. Surprisingly, there is little research on the topic.

Two researchers decided to apply a bit of scientific method to this question. So let’s take a look at what you’ve been doing right and what you’ve been doing wrong on that work break.

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Emily Hunter and Cindy Wu are associate professors from Baylor University’s School of Business. They felt the best place to begin was with some commonly held beliefs. Emily explains their approach:

For the study, Emily and Cindy defined a break as “any period of time, formal or informal, during the workday in which work-relevant tasks are not required or expected, including but not limited to a break for lunch, coffee, personal email or socializing with coworkers, not including bathroom breaks.”

They surveyed 95 employees ranging in age from 22-67 over the course of a week. For each break the employees took they were asked to record their activities. When all the surveys were gathered, Emily and Cindy had a total of 959 break surveys to analyze. An average of over 2 breaks for each person every day.

Their analyses resulted in several nuggets of wisdom. And it may come with a surprise or two. Emily had this to say about their results:

How to Take Effective Breaks

Here are 4 tips – straight from Emily and Cindy’s press release:

Hunter and Wu found that rather than the typical culture of working hard all morning only to take a lunch-hour or mid-afternoon break, a respite earlier in the workday replenishes more resources – energy, concentration and motivation.

“We found that when more hours had elapsed since the beginning of the work shift, fewer resources and more symptoms of poor health were reported after a break,” the study says. “Therefore, breaks later in the day seem to be less effective.”

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A common belief exists that doing things that are non-work-related are more beneficial, Hunter explained. Based on the study, there was no evidence to prove that non-work-related activities were more beneficial.

Simply put, preferred break activities are things you choose to do and things you like to do. These could also include work-related tasks.

“Finding something on your break that you prefer to do – something that’s not given to you or assigned to you – are the kinds of activities that are going to make your breaks much more restful, provide better recovery and help you come back to work stronger,” Hunter said.

The employee surveys showed that recovery of resources – energy, concentration and motivation – following a “better break” (earlier in the day, doing things they preferred) led workers to experience less somatic symptoms, including headache, eyestrain and lower back pain after the break.

These employees also experienced increased job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior as well as a decrease in emotional exhaustion (burnout), the study shows.

While the study was unable to pinpoint an exact length of time for a better workday break (15 minutes, 30 minutes, etc.), the research found that more short breaks were associated with higher resources, suggesting that employees should be encouraged to take more frequent short breaks to facilitate recovery.

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Breaking Bad

Thanks to Cindy and Emily, we can now maximize our break time. Their study appears in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Will this work for everyone? I would say probably not. Human personalities are too nuanced and quirky to have a “one-size-fits-all.” What works for someone else may not work for you. We’re all a little bit different.

However, these can be a great guideline to get ideas, tweak your existing routine, or even examine current office policies. Experiment and find out what works for you.

Oh yeah, and one last thing. While traveling that road to success, don’t forget to stop and enjoy the scenery. It does the soul good.

This article originally appeared on TheBrainFlux