Recipe for Success: Lunch Breaks

Chaining yourself to your desk or scarfing down your lunch in your cubicle is not a recipe for success – it is a recipe for disaster. If you don’t take enough breaks, your mental well-being, productivity, and overall work performance can suffer. Remember, overworked employees normally deal with chronic stress that can easily lead to burnout. This is why you need to take breaks throughout the workday – particularly lunch breaks. These breaks are crucial in helping you de-stress and re-charge for the rest of the day. Here are just a few of the benefits of taking regular breaks.

1. Increased Productivity

While taking breaks might sound counterintuitive when it comes to increasing productivity, it is one of the best ways to do so. If you spend your lunch break behind your desk and focused on work, your brain doesn’t get a chance to switch off and regroup. The result? An afternoon characterized by tiredness, foggy thinking, and diminished productivity. Stepping away at lunch can help you regain your focus and energy. By taking your lunch break, you can refuel and reinvigorate yourself, giving you enough energy to take on the afternoon’s challenges.

2. Boost Creativity

Struggling from writer’s block? Lost your creative spark? Experiencing problems with your current project? If you are facing challenges at work, consider taking a break. Taking a break can give you a fresh perspective on difficult projects. Oftentimes, it is hard to develop solutions or new ideas when you have been looking at the same thing all day. Taking a lunch break may help get your creative juices flowing, allowing you to tackle challenges anew.

3. Improved Mental Health

Everyone needs time to recharge. Stress is incredibly common in the workplace, and it has detrimental effects on employees. Taking some time away from your desk to enjoy a healthy lunch or go for a quick walk can help release some of your stress and improve your overall mental health.

4. Fewer Aches and Pains

Aches and pains, particularly back and neck pain, can be the consequence of continuous hours stuck behind a desk. Sitting in one position and poor posture strain your spine and the muscles that support it. Changing positions, getting up, and moving around during your lunch break can counter the effects of enforced immobility, enhancing your comfort for the rest of the workday.

5. Practice Healthy Habits

Regular breaks, including a lunch break, gives you time to practice healthy habits in the workplace. You can use your break times to eat a healthy lunch, meditate, exercise, or engage in a self-care activity. Lunch breaks provide you with the opportunity for self-care – do something that can keep you healthy and happy.