Why taking breaks during your workday is vital to your wellbeing – and your efficacy!

Having your lunch ‘al desko’ – again? You are not alone. Most of us don’t take our lunch break, or any breaks during the day for that matter, bar a quick dash to the loo. Here’s why you need to change that.

THE LONG-LOST LUNCH BRE‘AK

It’s 1pm on a Wednesday – where are you right now? Sitting on a park bench, enjoying the sunshine? Or eating out of Tupperware at your desk again? According to a 2018 survey by job search website CareerJunction, only a third of South Africans take a lunch break – despite the fact that 55% of the people surveyed had 60 minutes a day for lunch. In fact, only 5% use their full hour; the average time SA employees take for lunch is 24,5 minutes.

The vast majority (67%) eat at their desk while they work – or browse the internet for a few minutes. A fifth skip lunch altogether, and 35% felt they were chained to their desks – they only ever get up to go to the bathroom.

Why are we so averse to grabbing a sandwich and eating it outside? It may have something to do with workload: 73% said they have too much work to do, or that something urgent often comes up. Then again, it could also be peer pressure: 19% admitted that they feel pressured not to take a lunch break.

This echoes the findings of a US survey called ‘Take Back the Lunch Break’ – according to their numbers, nearly 20% of US employees don’t take lunch breaks because they’re concerned that their bosses won’t see them as hardworking; 13% feel judged by their colleagues.

‘This probably explains the side-eye I get from colleagues when I shut my laptop at noon,’ writes Man Repeller staffer Jennifer Epperson, who makes a point of taking a lunch break every day. ‘Even if they would like to join me, breaking the social contract of abstaining from selfcare during work hours is perceived as risky.’

She is often the only person in the office who stops working altogether and leaves the office midday. ‘And this has been the case at every office I have worked in for the past 10 years,’ she says.

‘There’s just this demand to be forever available,’ says Professor Kimberly Elsbach. She works at the University of California’s Davis Graduate School of Management and recently took part in a broadcasted discussion on this very topic. ‘People are reluctant to leave their desk in case they miss something, and so people are eating at their desk – if they’re eating at all – and are just there for longer periods.’

Those few minutes a day add up. Using this information, CareerJunction did the maths and made a pretty profound discovery: the average Saffer spends a total of 2,2 years working overtime because they are not taking a lunch break.

WE WERE ON A BREAK

‘When demand in our lives intensifies, we tend to hunker down and push harder,’ says Tony Schwartz, head of The Energy Project, a New York-based productivity consulting firm for top companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Coca-Cola and Ford. ‘The trouble is that, without any downtime to refresh and recharge, we’re less efficient, make more mistakes and get less engaged with what we’re doing.’

After a long work stint, your ability to make well-reasoned decisions takes a nosedive; this is referred to as ‘decision fatigue’. This state of mind often leads people to procrastinate or make simplistic decisions. In one fascinating study, Princeton researchers discovered that Israeli judges were more likely to grant parole to prisoners early in their workday, or shortly after taking one of their twicedaily breaks. When the judges were tired, they quickly resorted to the ‘safest’ option: just saying no.

Another study found that focusing on a singular task for a long period of time crippled performance. ‘We propose that deactivating and reactivating your goals allows you to stay focused,’ says psychology professor Alejandro Lleras. ‘From a practical standpoint, our research suggests that, when faced with long tasks (such as studying before a final exam or doing your taxes), it’s best to impose brief breaks

Saffers spend a total of 2,2 years working overtime because they are not taking a lunch break.

on yourself. Brief mental breaks will actually help you stay focused on your task!’

It’s well known that sleeping consolidates your memories. But there is evidence to suggest that waking rest improves memory formation as well. While you’re idly sipping coffee and watching the world go by, your brain is hard at work reviewing what you’ve learnt, processing information and making connections. In their 2012 study, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and her colleagues at the University of Southern California and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tracked neural activity in their subjects’ brains using an MRI scanner; they found that the brain is still highly active when you’re resting or letting your mind wander. ‘Rest is indeed not idleness, nor is it a wasted opportunity for productivity,’ she wrote.

Taking a break can also boost creativity. If you are struggling to solve a problem, or feeling stuck, the best thing you can do is take a break. Or, better yet, go for a walk – more on that in a bit.

Science writer Ferris Jabr echoes all these findings in a Scientific American article. ‘Downtime replenishes the brain’s stores of attention and motivation, encourages productivity and creativity, and is essential to both achieve our highest levels of performance and simply form stable memories in everyday life,’ he writes. ‘Moments of respite may even be necessary to keep one’s moral compass in working order and maintain a sense of self.’

According to Jennifer (the one being side-eyed by her co-workers), consistently taking a lunch break has become something akin to ‘an act of resistance’. But she maintains that it’s worth it. ‘I’ve never missed a deadline or life-altering event because I was at lunch, and the quality of my work is better when I take one. But maybe more importantly, regularly pausing midday sustains me physically, mentally and emotionally. And what’s more important than that?’

TAKE BETTER BREAKS

Instead of scrolling through your friend’s neighbour’s ex’s holiday pics on Facebook for 45 minutes, or doing Buzzfeed quizzes like ‘What kind of cheese are you?’, use this time wisely.

Go for an aimless walk

The best thing you can do to boost motivation and feel refreshed is simple: go for a meandering stroll. One Stanford study found that ‘walking opens up the free flow of ideas, and it is a simple and robust solution to the goals of increasing creativity and

Taking a break can also boost creativity. If you are struggling to solve a problem, or feeling stuck, the best thing you can do is take a break. Or, better yet, go for a walk…

increasing physical activity’. In The Lost Art of Walking, author Geoff Nicholson had this to say: ‘Writing is one way of making the world our own… walking is another.’ While you’re out and about, follow Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s advice: ‘Let your thoughts wander aimlessly, snooping about, experimenting with first one thing and then another.’ German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche also sang the praises of a good walk, even going as far as to claim that the thoughts he had while walking were the only ones with ‘any value’.

Exercise your eyes

Staring at a computer for hours on end is spectacularly bad for your eyes – not least because people tend to blink less, causing eye strain. Here’s a little exercise you can do to reduce fatigue, called the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, look away from your computer, at something 20ft away (that’s 6m) for at least 20 seconds. And remember to blink!

Make a move

According to the Mayo Clinic, ‘an inactive job or a desk job can contribute to back pain, especially if you have poor posture or sit all day in a chair with inadequate back support’. So get up every now and then, if only to stretch your legs.

Engage your mind

Instead of just chipping away at your overloaded inbox during lunch, make an effort to spend your lunch break thinking about something other than work – read a chapter from the book you can’t put down, or get your earphones out and listen to music or a podcast.

Focus on your food

Eat your lunch mindfully. Chew each bite carefully, taking note of the textures and savouring the various flavours.

Zone in to zone out

Taking just a few minutes a day to do a meditation exercise will ease stress, as well as fight depression, fatigue, high blood pressure and insomnia. So find a quiet spot and open that app you downloaded months ago. Or just go outside and do a few simple breathing exercises in the fresh air.

Have a power nap

This one is going to be pretty controversial if you work in an office; most bosses would frown upon their employees curling up under their desk for a midday nap… (Then again, The Huffington Post has sleep pods in the office, so who’s to say?) But if you work from home, a 10- or 20-minute nap can do you the world of good. Once you hit 30 minutes, you have taken it too far – you’ll only feel groggy upon waking up.

Doodle

If your daily tasks require a lot of logical, left-brain thinking, engaging the other side of the brain can provide a reprieve. Get out some paper and start drawing to activate the creative, visual right brain.

Plan an outing

Whether it’s a dream getaway to a far-flung destination or just a local road trip, research has shown that just the anticipation of a holiday makes people happier than the actual trip itself.