{"id":20447,"date":"2019-10-15T10:02:08","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T10:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/?p=20447"},"modified":"2019-10-15T10:02:08","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T10:02:08","slug":"work-breaks-importance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/en\/work-breaks-importance\/","title":{"rendered":"Work Breaks Are Important And Here Is Why"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-fullwidth-1  fusion-parallax-none nonhundred-percent-fullwidth\" style=\"border-bottom-width: 0px;border-top-width: 0px;border-bottom-style: solid;border-top-style: solid;padding-bottom:20px;padding-top:20px;padding-left:;padding-right:;\"><style type=\"text\/css\" scoped=\"scoped\">.fusion-fullwidth-1 {\r\n                            padding-left: px !important;\r\n                            padding-right: px !important;\r\n                        }<\/style><div class=\"fusion-row\"><div class=\"fusion-title title fusion-title-center fusion-title-size-one\"><div class=\"title-sep-container title-sep-container-left\"><div class=\"title-sep sep-double sep-solid\" style=\"border-color:#5f80a0;\"><\/div><\/div><h1 class=\"title-heading-center\"><span style=\"color: #5f80a0;\">The Work Break Value<\/span><\/h1><div class=\"title-sep-container title-sep-container-right\"><div class=\"title-sep sep-double sep-solid\" style=\"border-color:#5f80a0;\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When at work, we all want to be as effective and\u00a0<strong>productive<\/strong>\u00a0as\u00a0we possibly can. To reach this goal, people do extra hours, skip lunchtime or even use their leisure time to work. But contrarily to what we may think,\u00a0<strong>work breaks<\/strong>\u00a0end up being way more profitable for productivity. By nature, the human mind works at its highest level for around 1 hour. After that, for the following 15 to 20 minutes, there is a decrease in the level of energy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Working on the same task during a long period can be\u00a0<strong>prejudicial\u00a0<\/strong>for productivity and performance. Some defend that working intensely and doing small breaks, is a great way to resolve the fact that we cannot be focused\u00a0<strong>100%<\/strong>\u00a0of the time. Several\u00a0<strong>studies\u00a0<\/strong>have been conducted to understand which way is more profitable to organise our breaks at work.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A first one, conducted by the\u00a0Draugiem Group, in 2014, showed that workers with higher productivity worked intensely for <strong>52 minutes<\/strong> and did a <strong>17 minutes<\/strong> break while in another study, researchers defend that the <strong>Pomodoro Technique<\/strong> is the most effective way to do breaks. This technique was invented by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980\u2019. It consists of doing 5-minute breaks every 25 minutes and taking a larger break every two hours to avoid being interrupted by anything. A sleep researcher, Nathan Kleitman, discovered that our body has peaks of high frequency of brain activity for <strong>90 minutes<\/strong>, before decreasing for <strong>20 minutes<\/strong>, so for him, we should apply this on our daily life, to be more productive.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Regardless of which technique is used to schedule breaks, there is another thing we should focus on:\u00a0<strong>what do we do during these breaks?<\/strong> Effective breaks allow you to\u00a0<strong>reset which<\/strong> implies a\u00a0<strong>total disconnection<\/strong>\u00a0from the work you were doing. To do so, employees can read, have a coffee break, meditate, nap, talk to each other\u2026 However, it was showed that <strong>using your phone<\/strong> is\u00a0<strong>counterproductive.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Another survey from StepStone (2019), focusing on lunch breaks showed that Belgian employees take the shortest lunch breaks compared to their European counterparts: an average of 22 minutes. Because of excessive workload, <strong>49% to 60%<\/strong> of European employees shorten their lunchtime while they would actually have more energy and more productive if they took a proper one.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">We must fight the <strong>stigma<\/strong> that breaks at work are a sign of laziness. According to EU directives, breaks are mandatory. Companies need to encourage their employees to take breaks as it is very important for their physical and mental well-being. It will improve productivity, creativity and focus.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><u>References:<\/u><\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">For the Most Productive Workday, Science Says Make Sure to Do This, March 2019<a href=\"https:\/\/www.inc.com\/minda-zetlin\/productivity-workday-52-minutes-work-17-minutes-break-travis-bradberry-pomodoro-technique.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">, Inc.<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Belgian workers take the shortest lunch break in Europe, study shows, August 2019, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brusselstimes.com\/all-news\/belgium-all-news\/65312\/belgian-workers-take-shorter-lunch-breaks-than-other-europeans\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Brussels Times<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Taking a mental break from work? Don\u2019t check your phone, study shows, August 2019, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.freemalaysiatoday.com\/category\/leisure\/2019\/08\/20\/taking-a-mental-break-from-work-dont-check-your-phone-study-shows\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FMT news<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Give them a break: Studies show workers who stop for lunch have more energy and are more productive, September 2019, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lvb.com\/give-break-studies-show-workers-stop-lunch-energy-productive\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">LVB.com<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Working hours, August 2019, <a href=\"https:\/\/europa.eu\/youreurope\/business\/human-resources\/working-hours-holiday-leave\/working-hours\/index_en.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">EUROPA<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">The Science of Taking Breaks at Work: How to Be More Productive By Changing the Way You Think About Downtime, August 2017, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.buffer.com\/science-taking-breaks-at-work\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Buffer<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":20448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","myguten_meta_block_field":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}