Rest Breaks
Rest breaks can range from short pauses to defined breaks such as lunch.
Short Pause Breaks
These are short breaks that provide an opportunity for muscles that have been active in keyboard or mouse use to rest and recover and muscles which have been fixed such as shoulder muscles or leg muscles to move.
Short Pause Break activities include:
- Answering the phone
- Collecting a document from the printer
- Getting a cup of tea or glass of water
- Visiting a colleague rather than phoning or emailing them.
Where a variety of alternative tasks are not available, it is important to have more breaks away from the task. The length of these and how often they are taken depends on the work, the person and other factors however it is important to note that frequent short pauses are preferable to infrequent longer pauses.
Doing exercises during breaks can provide a variety of postural changes and movement for muscles during periods of intense work. These exercises may be useful where there are no alternative tasks available. Exercises should be gentle stretches which provide rest for frequently used muscles and movement for muscles which have been static. The best exercise is usually to get up from a seated position and move around.