“Let’s have a break”: An experimental comparison of work-break interventions and their impact on performance

Abstract Work breaks are known for positively influencing employees’ psychologically and physiologically. Thus far, only limited research regarding the importance of precise work-break activities has been conducted, which becomes crucial to an employer when deciding on investing in additional work-break activities. Therefore, in this study, we investigate whether performance effects induced by work breaks differ for different work-break interventions. Using a laboratory pre-test-post-test-design, the impact of three work-break interventions (namely, relaxation system, boxing, napping) on objective and subjective performance- and state-related determinants is investigated. It was found that the boxing and relaxation system interventions had significantly greater impacts on the performance variables as compared to napping. However, we did not find any significant differences between the two aforementioned interventions - boxing and the relaxation system.