Introducing short spells of tempo into your movement practice whether that is in a structured or unstructured way can be beneficial in several ways. So far we have mainly looked at the research of physical health benefits. We also briefly looked at how your brain responds when you speed up your movement. Unsurprisingly, these results have been picked up by researchers interested in productivity. There are two streams of research which look further into productivity gains which may be interesting to you.
The first is productivity in what they call “knowledge workers” or what we would think of as people that work in jobs that are less physical and more to do with thinking. Here, it has been shown that activity breaks including those that involve some faster movements can improve wellbeing and performance. In particular, wellbeing may be positively affected by reduced emotional exhaustion and irritation at work and better sleep outside of work hours. Following active breaks, there is also increased flow and concentration as well as decreased tiredness, which can result in increased output.
An interesting study looked at walking meetings. Walking can, in general, bolster creative thinking and mood. From personal experience, I can also speak about the positive effects on team dynamics. A recent study that looked at the effect of walking meetings with remote workers during the pandemic confirmed this. I particularly related to a reflection of one participant who stated that moving helped ‘against the stickiness of thought’. I think that is such a lovely way of describing the effect of movement on thinking and captures the large potential that lies in introducing movement in the form of walking meetings. This definitely is an area where there is more research to be done.
If you think that activity breaks or turning sedentary parts of your job into activity is not for you, then active workstations could be an option instead. Active workstations can increase total activity volume and also have been shown to increase some aspects of work output. Note though, that treadmill workstations have been found to not go too well with tasks requiring accurate fine motor skills such as mouse or stylus use (surprise!).
The second stream of research you might be interested in, perhaps specifically for the younger members of your family, is that of thinking ability in school-aged children. Here, it has been shown that high intensity activity breaks confer the greatest advantage to concentration ability. Activity breaks involving coordination of limbs and some mental challenge are superior. Think skipping rope, four square etc.
Quick start into productivity breaks:
- If there are no scheduled work breaks at your job or if you are working part-time, think about how you might fit in activity breaks to improve productivity and wellbeing.
- Shorter breaks (<5 minutes) can be beneficial up to early afternoon, whereas longer breaks may be most useful from late afternoon onward.
- While simple walking as in walking meetings may ‘unstick your thinking’, including an element of cognitive challenge such as walking in uneven terrain is a good idea.
- The greater the physical challenge, even if for very short periods, the more benefit – think power walking up a flight of stairs or lamppost power walking around the block.
If you are keen to learn more about how adding some tempo to your physical and mental activity can benefit you, follow me or subscribe to the blogpost. To work with me one-on-one to apply some of these principles to your own life and movement, message me for a free call. I look forward to hearing from you.
References (for the extra keen)
Bornioli (2023)
Dupont et al. (2019)
Lyubykh et al. (2022)
Pastor-Vicedo et al. (2021)