Why is it important to take breaks at work in terms of fatigue?
Lavonne McGlynn
2025-08-08 19:38:33
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It’s easy to get stuck working for hours on end without giving yourself a break, especially when you feel you are too busy, and this can lead to burnout. Integrating regular breaks into your working day is crucial to allow your mind time to rest. A short break allows you to pause and rest so you can resume tasks with new energy. Disengaging from work only for a few minutes but on a regular basis can be sufficient for preventing exhaustion and boosting performance. This is because fatigue worsens over the workday, and we need more break time in the afternoon to recharge. Monitor your energy levels – When you notice yourself feeling tired or losing concentration, it’s likely time for a quick break to recharge. Microbreaks are thought to help us to cope with long periods at our desks by taking the strain off certain body structures – such as the neck – that we’re using all day.
Nathaniel Borer
2025-08-03 10:19:34
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When we power through daily tasks and ignore our needs there can be consequences, including a lack of attention and mistakes. The team behind the analysis say micro-breaks appear to reduce fatigue and help workers feel more vigorous. When taking a short break when we feel the need to, we can notice that new ideas start to flow easily again, or effortlessly can pay attention to what we do. The results revealed that micro-breaks had a small but positive effect on participants, suggesting about 64% of the group taking micro-breaks would score above the mean of the control group both for vigour and fatigue. Dr Ben Waber, a visiting scientist at the MIT Media Lab and co-founder and president of Humanyze, a people analytics company, said a number of studies had looked at micro-breaks over the years, generally finding positive relationships at the individual level with reduced stress and improved performance in some cases. Brendan Burchell, a professor in social sciences at the University of Cambridge, added it was also important to look at the wider impact of different jobs, pointing to eye problems and muscular-skeletal illnesses as among the issues that could affect people who sit at a computer all day without breaks.
Chelsea Hansen
2025-07-23 00:33:08
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Taking regular breaks can boost your performance. Studies have found that breaks can reduce or prevent stress, help to maintain performance throughout the day and reduce the need for a long recovery at the end of the day. Recovering from work stress can restore energy and mental resources and decrease the development of fatigue, sleep disorders and cardiovascular disease. A relaxing break can help to facilitate recovery, by returning your mental and psychical functional systems to their baseline. Additionally, a relaxing break can help to reset your mood, thereby promoting positive wellbeing and reducing stress. A study by Korpela, Kinnunen, Geurts, de Bloom and Sianoja found that taking lunchtime breaks and detaching from work, increases levels of energy at work and decreases exhaustion. Furthermore, one year later it was found to increase vigor and increase energy levels over time. Micro-breaks, lunchtime breaks and longer breaks, have all been shown to have a positive relationship with wellbeing and productivity. Kim, Park and Niu research found it is important to take mini-breaks throughout the working day. Mini-breaks help to support your wellbeing and increase productivity.
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