 "The fifteen-minute recess that was found so vital in the development of children can be too easily discarded once we hole-up in offices and cubes." |
Better behavior with fifteen-minute breaks, it’s kid-tested and employer approved.
By David Mantey, Editor, PD&D
I was scanning the wire this morning and an interesting study popped to the top of the queue. A recent study by Dr. Romina Barros and colleagues at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, looked at more than 10,000 kids and found better classroom behavior among those who had at least a fifteen-minute break during the school day compared to those who did not.
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Other than my general interest in the ongoing state of education in this country, you may ask, ‘What’s the big deal?’ But the article had me thinking about the importance of taking a moment to breathe easy during your workday. Whether it’s the half-hour lunch that you have to comb the internet for current issues of interest or a fifteen-minute coffee break for idle chatter in the lunch room, it’s important to find time during the day to unwind.
Sure, the study focuses on children from eight-to-nine years of age, but the reasoning is transcendent. If you work up to a twelve-hour workday without removing yourself from the swivel chair, you’re bound to get restless. It’s important to stretch the legs – even if it’s only across the office to talk to a colleague about his/her afterthoughts from CES.
Even on flights that last over eight hours, we’re stressed to get up and stretch the legs a bit. The quick calisthenics have to do with the pressurized cabin and the tiny quarters, but “While the human body was certainly designed to sit,” as frequent traveler/attorney/writer Richard Chapo once wrote “doing it for 10 to 14 hours straight is not within the design specifications!”
Break time is also important in a social point of view. Get to know your co-workers. Get to know the people who sit on the other side of the wall. Know what they do. For all you know, you may have been working with them through corporate email for a year and never had a face-to-face conversation. Sometimes it impossible (they work in a satellite office). Sometimes it improbable (walking to his/her side of the building would take at least fifteen minutes in transit).
The social aspect of the fifteen-minute recess that was found so vital in the development of children can be too easily discarded once we hole-up in offices and cubes, never to be seen or heard from again.
What's your take? Send comments to david.mantey@advantagemedia.com.