The Importance of taking a break

‘It’s simple, if you are sat in a chair all day, regardless of how ‘high-tech’ and ‘ergonomic’ it is or if you are straining your eyes staring at a computer, you are likely to develop a headache, sore eyes and other aches and pains.

Taking a brief mental break will help you stay focused and will help improve your productivity. Here are a few reasons why you should take a break during the day.

Postural fatigue: Long periods of static muscle work result in an accumulation of lactic acid, which leads to discomfort, muscle dysfunction and pain. Stretching and contracting the muscles will help to prevent this. For example, getting up and walking away from your desk or changing your posture regularly.
Visual fatigue: If you use your eyes in a prolonged and sustained manner they will begin to fatigue. It is important to prevent this by regularly changing your visual focus. For example, have a few minutes away from a computer screen.

Mental stimulation: Breaks allow you to refresh your cognitive function.
Improved productivity: Don’t feel guilty about taking a break. Use this time effectively and within reason to refresh, refuel and reactivate your goals.

But, what constitutes a break? Taking a 5-10 minute break is better than nothing! Use this time to grab a drink of water, visit the toilet or communicate with work colleagues. If you struggle to leave your desk then think about changing your posture or change the task you’re working on.

Try to take a visual break every 20 minutes and look at something which is 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

Avoid skipping lunch and use this time to refuel and gain some energy for the afternoon.

If you have time, going to the gym is a great way take a break during the day. This will allow you to stretch your muscles and clear your mind. You can always do chair based exercises at your desk.

Sometimes I forget to take a break, what can I do about this?

We all tend to get caught up in work, but if you struggle to remember to take a break there are many ways to remind yourself…

Design in breaks: move the printer away from your desk so that you have to get up to retrieve your documents.

Habits: staying hydrated is extremely important so remember to grab a drink of water and leave your desk to have a break.

Associative breaks: associate a break or change in posture with tasks that you undertake regularly. For example, stand up when taking a phone call, get up and have a conversation with a colleague rather than sending an email and set reminders on your PC to take a break.

Task rotation: if you conduct several different tasks during a day, try to break them up into shorter periods and alternate them. For example, split tasks up that require a PC and tasks which do not to avoid visual fatigue.

Office workers using PCs should spend about 10 minutes of every hour breaking. Research has shown that a 2-3-minute break every 20 minutes is the ideal. This might not be practical for many of us but it does give us an idea of what we should be working towards. And for those with aches and pains, diligent breaking will go a long way towards reducing exacerbating problems.’

By Emma Dennis, Health and Wellbeing Manager at Osborne.