Yea I know we all do it, and coming from the man my parents call the master of procastination (totally not true BTW) it can get in the way. But did you know that taking breaks, and wasting time can seriously help decrease stress levels and increase your productivity when done in short doses? YEA! You heard right! Getting distracted actually can help your work. Although like anything you can’t get out of hand with it.

Studies show that even a short 30 second intermission from your work can help refresh your mind, let it start up new ideas, and even relieve large amounts of stress being put on your body by constant work. What happens is our brain literally takes a breather. Like when you go for a run and take a break in between. It gives time for you to breath and refresh yourself so you can continue at a constant rate without overtiring your body. Breaks should be in between 2 to 5 minutes maximum. Just enough for your brain to take a breather before continuing working.

A major problem that can arise from taking a short break however would be overdoing it. Like it states above breaks should be maximum 5 minutes. Any longer and it poses the risk of making it impossible to get back to work. Studies show that distractions that last longer than 5 minutes causes the brain to take another 15 minutes to bring itself back to speed. So I guess the secret is all inside moderation and self control. Sites like Facebook are tedious for causing lengthy breaks and should be avoided when thinking of possible sites or activities you can do during a break.

A worthy point would be that breaks and procrastinating are 2 completely different things. Procrastinating involves avoiding work, while taking a break refreshes your brain for more work to come. Maybe reading this blog could serve as a worthy break and hopefully not a part of lengthy procrastination.

Luke Melenberg