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"Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance
Recovery activities during short breaks taken between work tasks are solutions for preventing the impairing effects of accumulated strain. No wonder then that a growing body of scientific literature from various perspectives emerged on this topic. The present meta-analysis is aimed at estimating the...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9432722/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36044424 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272460 |
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author | Albulescu, Patricia Macsinga, Irina Rusu, Andrei Sulea, Coralia Bodnaru, Alexandra Tulbure, Bogdan Tudor |
author_facet | Albulescu, Patricia Macsinga, Irina Rusu, Andrei Sulea, Coralia Bodnaru, Alexandra Tulbure, Bogdan Tudor |
author_sort | Albulescu, Patricia |
collection | PubMed |
description | Recovery activities during short breaks taken between work tasks are solutions for preventing the impairing effects of accumulated strain. No wonder then that a growing body of scientific literature from various perspectives emerged on this topic. The present meta-analysis is aimed at estimating the efficacy of micro-breaks in enhancing well-being (vigor and fatigue) and performance, as well as in which conditions and for whom are the micro-breaks most effective. We searched the existent literature on this topic and aggregated the existing data from experimental and quasi-experimental studies. The systematic search revealed 19 records, which resulted in 22 independent study samples (N = 2335). Random-effects meta-analyses shown statistically significant but small effects of micro-breaks in boosting vigor (d = .36, p < .001; k = 9, n = 913), reducing fatigue (d = .35, p < .001; k = 9, n = 803), and a non-significant effect on increasing overall performance (d = .16, p = .116; k = 15, n = 1132). Sub-groups analyses on performance types revealed significant effects only for tasks with less cognitive demands. A meta-regression showed that the longer the break, the greater the boost was on performance. Overall, the data support the role of micro-breaks for well-being, while for performance, recovering from highly depleting tasks may need more than 10-minute breaks. Therefore, future studies should focus on this issue. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9432722 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-94327222022-09-01 "Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance Albulescu, Patricia Macsinga, Irina Rusu, Andrei Sulea, Coralia Bodnaru, Alexandra Tulbure, Bogdan Tudor PLoS One Research Article Recovery activities during short breaks taken between work tasks are solutions for preventing the impairing effects of accumulated strain. No wonder then that a growing body of scientific literature from various perspectives emerged on this topic. The present meta-analysis is aimed at estimating the efficacy of micro-breaks in enhancing well-being (vigor and fatigue) and performance, as well as in which conditions and for whom are the micro-breaks most effective. We searched the existent literature on this topic and aggregated the existing data from experimental and quasi-experimental studies. The systematic search revealed 19 records, which resulted in 22 independent study samples (N = 2335). Random-effects meta-analyses shown statistically significant but small effects of micro-breaks in boosting vigor (d = .36, p < .001; k = 9, n = 913), reducing fatigue (d = .35, p < .001; k = 9, n = 803), and a non-significant effect on increasing overall performance (d = .16, p = .116; k = 15, n = 1132). Sub-groups analyses on performance types revealed significant effects only for tasks with less cognitive demands. A meta-regression showed that the longer the break, the greater the boost was on performance. Overall, the data support the role of micro-breaks for well-being, while for performance, recovering from highly depleting tasks may need more than 10-minute breaks. Therefore, future studies should focus on this issue. Public Library of Science 2022-08-31 /pmc/articles/PMC9432722/ /pubmed/36044424 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272460 Text en © 2022 Albulescu et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Albulescu, Patricia Macsinga, Irina Rusu, Andrei Sulea, Coralia Bodnaru, Alexandra Tulbure, Bogdan Tudor "Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance |
title | "Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance |
title_full | "Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance |
title_fullStr | "Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance |
title_full_unstemmed | "Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance |
title_short | "Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance |
title_sort | "give me a break!" a systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9432722/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36044424 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272460 |
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