Give Me a Break! Why mental breaks are necessary to both our productivity and success
Written by Aidan Sammel
It's a Saturday afternoon, and you have an important final exam coming up on Monday. You want to get in as much studying as possible before the big day. Although you’ve been studying all week, everything you read seems to vanish from your brain shortly after reading it. What should you do?
Unfortunately, this situation is all too familiar for many of us. It can be frustrating to put in so much work toward achieving our goals, only to have our brains shut down when we need them most.
Fortunately, the solution to this problem may be as simple as it is paradoxical: stop studying — at least, until later.
Research has suggested that even brief breaks can significantly enhance our performance. A study conducted by Rees et al. (2017) involved university students who were asked to monitor railway line maps on a screen. This task required continuous attention to follow the planned train routes. The task lasted 45 minutes, and the participants were divided into two groups. One group completed the task without any breaks, while the second group took a five-minute break halfway through. During the break, students were randomly assigned to one of five activities: sitting quietly, listening to music, watching a music video, choosing between listening to music or watching a video, or spending the break as they wished without leaving the room. The results showed that all students in the second group that took a 5-minute break, regardless of the activity, performed better than those who did not take a break.
It seems that the human brain cannot function optimally when holding attention for an extended period of time. In another study, 19 healthy adults did a mentally-taxing 50-minute listening activity. Researchers measured mental fatigue by using self-reports, as well as response time and accuracy. Participants’ brain activity was also measured (Moore et al., 2017). The results showed that participants felt more tired and performed worse in the second half of the task compared to the first. Brain scans showed that as people tired, the parts of their brain that help them stay focused were less active, which made it harder for them to concentrate.
In another study, 16 healthy adults performed a 60-minute memory task. Their performance on the task was measured, along with self-reported feelings of effort and fatigue, blood flow in the brain, and heart rate. As the task went on, parts of the brain that help with memory had to work harder. The connections in the front part of the brain — which helps with planning and solving problems — also got weaker. This made it easier for people to lose focus (Karthikeyan et al., 2022). These studies, among others, show that overworking can lead to physiological impairments that diminish our performance on mental tasks.
Working without breaks may also have important implications for workplace productivity. Research underscores the importance of taking breaks, whether vacations, weekends, evenings, and short work breaks, to recover and maintain a healthy work-life balance (Fritz et al., 2013). A recent report from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health revealed that 40% of employees in the United States find their jobs highly stressful, yet many leave vacation days unused. This highlights the toll of economic uncertainty and increased work demands (Kiersma, 2014). According to Fritz et al. (2013), this can create burnout, which not only reduces productivity, but also negatively impacts employee well-being and overall health.
Effective recovery from overworking involves activities that promote relaxation, detachment from work, and opportunities for growth. Engaging in these activities can boost well-being and job performance, although the benefits of breaks, like vacations, may diminish quickly if high workloads resume.
So, take a break every once in a while. Your brain needs it, and so do your grades!
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References
Fritz, C., Ellis, A. M., Demsky, C. A., Lin, B. C., & Guros, F. (2013). Embracing work breaks. Organizational Dynamics, 42(4), 274–280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2013.07.005
Karthikeyan, R., Carrizales, J., Johnson, C., & Mehta, R. K. (2022). A window into the tired brain: Neurophysiological dynamics of visuospatial working memory under fatigue. Human Factors 66(2), 528–543. https://doi.org/10.1177/00187208221094900
Kiersma, M. E. (2014). National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. In Encyclopedia of Toxicology (pp. 454–455). https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-386454-3.00340-7
Moore, T. M., Key, A. P., Thelen, A., & Hornsby, B. W. Y. (2017). Neural mechanisms of mental fatigue elicited by sustained auditory processing. Neuropsychologia, 106(C), 371–382. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.10.025
Rees, A., Wiggins, M. W., Helton, W. S., Loveday, T., & O’Hare, D. (2017). The impact of breaks on sustained attention in a simulated, semi-automated train control task. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 31(3), 351–359. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3334
Disclaimer
The blog posts are for informational and educational purposes only. The posts should not be considered as any type of advice (medical, mental health, legal, and/or religious advice). All blog posts have been researched, written, and edited by the undergraduate students and alumni of the Lifespan Cognition Lab. As a teaching and research-based lab, we encourage all lab members to help make knowledge more accessible to all communities through these posts.
