During the Covid 19 pandemic I worked as an office based Finance Manager. Like many others, my office colleagues and I adapted our working practices and worked remotely from home.
I actually found my working day was longer; with fewer distractions I become engrossed in my work and during the autumn/winter period it was often dark when I sat down at my laptop and dark when I logged off and shut down.
Being at my laptop for hours on end without a break wasn't necessarily productive; my focus during the latter part of the day was not as sharp and it became harder to concentrate.
This clearly wasn't helpful for my wellbeing and my colleagues were having a similar experience.
So we introduced a 'one hour wellbeing break' to our working from home policy, in addition to coffee/lunch breaks, providing the opportunity to allocate enough time to get outdoors for some exercise while there was still some daylight.
The wellbeing break was scheduled into our shared calendars so as a team we wouldn't phone/message our colleagues during this hour.
It sounds like such a simple and obvious thing to do - but without putting that specific commitment in place, we would all have carried on - more than likely ending the day with a stiff neck and shoulders, sore eyes and a fuzzy head.
I can say for sure that for me, having an uninterrupted break away from the work environment, completely transformed my focus, mood and concentration for my work in the afternoon.
I have shared a link below to an abstract of a study on this topic which references wellbeing activities including foot reflexology:
Home × office or home and office: importance of breaks at work
Ca, Spagnol
2023 1 21