The World Health Organization (WHO) states that the job burnout It is a real phenomenon that affects a large part of the population. Thus, feeling exhausted in the workplace is more common than we imagine.
A person is considered to be suffering from job stress when they feel constantly fatigued at your job, when you have negative feelings about work, when you mentally distance yourself from your job, and when you reduce the efficiency with which you perform your job tasks.
Many people today are constantly concerned about the great Workload that invades them and, on some occasions, they do not perform as they should and do not perform tasks correctly.
That is why recently many researchers have focused on studying various aspects of energy management and employee recovery with the aim of finding methods that make workers more effective during your working day.
Taking micro-breaks every 10 minutes could help you perform better
Recently, a review of 22 previously published studies suggests that taking micro-breaks, interrupting a task for periods of 10 minutes or less, may be associated with a reduced fatigue and increased vigor.
The researchwhich has been led by Patricia Albulescu, an expert from the Western University of Timioara, in Romania, has recently been published in the open access journal PLOS ONE.
In order to find out which method would make workers more efficient, the researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 22 studies from 19 manuscripts published in the last 30 years, which examined the potential benefits of taking microbreaks on assigned tasks.
The types of tasks used varied and included job simulations, real job-related tasks, and non-job-related cognitive tests. In addition, the types of breaks were also different, including physical breaks, relaxing activities, and more engaging activities, such as watching videos.
Longer pauses increased performance
Finally, after rigorously analyzing the studies, the experts found a general association between micro breaks, higher levels of vigor and less fatigue in the participants, so the results suggest that taking micro breaks can contribute to well-being.
However, no overall association was found between micro-pauses and better task performance, although looking at the data in more detail, the researchers found that longer pauses tended to be related to better performance. This was especially true for creative or administrative tasks, although it was less so for more cognitively demanding tasks.
As the experts point out, these findings support that micro breaks would be a good potential strategy to promote wellness in the workplace. Likewise, micro-breaks would be effective in preserving stamina levels and relieving fatigue.
Despite this, as far as work performance is concerned, longer breaks would be necessary to recover.
In this way, the researchers hope to be able to other investigations to study how it would affect taking longer breaks and address other pending questions, such as the optimal activities to perform during a micro break.
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