Just give me a break! Why taking a break is vital to your heart health and overall wellbeing

“Forcing me to take a lunch break, would just make me very frustrated!”

I will just add that no one was being forced to do anything here.

However, this CEO, one of a group of business executives I was running a workshop with on leadership well-being, was clearly highly offended by my suggestion that taking a lunch break was a good idea for sustainable high-performance.

In his view, he was most effective at his job when he ran at high speed all day without taking any breaks until he went home.

(He didn’t like my further question about what his behaviour meant for his employees either.)

However, the science clearly tells us we are far more effective, efficient and make fewer mistakes when we take regular breaks at work.

Far from being a sign of laziness or time wasting, taking time for a break restores energy and attention which is reduced from our hyperfocus on our tasks after a few hours.

This simply reflects how we evolved. Unfortunately, the modern way of working frequently overlooks this and it’s easy to fall into the way of thinking that if you’ve got a lot on your plate and you’re under time pressure, it’s time to ramp up and work harder and faster.

Which is OK in the short term.

But when this becomes your norm, it starts to create higher levels of stress, that you may not initially be aware of. This then leads to higher levels of inflammation within the body triggering the development of stress-related illness, mental health challenges or burnout.

Taking care of business starts with better self-care.

Heart disease is our biggest killer. About 30% of us will succumb to either a stroke, heart attack or heart failure.

Yes, you did read that correctly, 30%.

So, if you’re keen to know how you can protect yourself from heart health problems, especially if you have a family history of heart disease, help is at hand.

1. Don’t work for a workaholic who is blind to their own work addiction and resistant to what is a better way to increase everyone’s health, happiness and fulfillment at work.
2. Reflect on your own stress management techniques. If there’s a bit of reliance on a high caffeine intake, alcohol to help you relax or smoking, ask yourself what might serve you better?
3. Give yourself permission to take regular breaks across your day to restore energy, focus and mood.
4. Get out of the office at lunch time and go for a walk.

Taking time out to step outdoors is a powerful stress buster. It triggers the parasympathetic nervous system that calms your mind and elevates mood, while lowering blood pressure and levels of cortisol.

Going for a walk in a natural setting like a local park is the key. You don’t get the same effect by walking around the urban jungle of grey concrete.

Walking is also a good stress buster in its own right, so combining this with being in a green space is ideal while hopefully there’s sufficient time for you to also eat your lunch outside too.

There isn’t a great deal of research in this area but one paper confirmed the importance of workday breaks, showing that those who undertook a daily 15-minute walk at lunchtime for 10 consecutive days, experienced higher levels of well-being at the end of the day.

This is the difference between crawling home to collapse on the sofa with a large glass of wine or three, or getting home with enough energy left in the tank to feel like participating in some evening activities and to sleep better too.

Every athlete knows the importance of including sufficient downtime and rest in their training programs to avoid overtraining, injury or excessive fatigue.

As corporate athletes, it’s important we do the same thing. That’s why nature-based social and green prescribing is becoming so popular.

We need a minimum of 120 minutes spent outside each week to feel at our best, physically, mentally and emotionally. That’s why that daily 15-minute walk is so important.

Living longer and more healthily.

More good news has come from an observational study looking at the link between physical activity – walking in this instance, and life expectancy found how a modest increase in walking can add up to six hours of life expectancy per additional walking hour.

It comes down to choice and what matters to you.

It’s also having the awareness that there are significant gains to be made through modest effort.

Trading in our lunch break for more work doesn’t make any sense for our heart health, mental well-being or overall happiness.

What nicer way to break up your day than to get outside into a green space and know you’re doing something that’s good for you?

How are you looking after your heart health?
Is a walk scheduled in your daily planner?