Make the most of your lunch break

There are countless reasons why eating lunch at your desk is a bad idea. Least of all, it’s dirty. “Desks are not very healthy places to eat, and that gets worse when you’re spilling egg salad on the keyboard,” says Kevin Kelloway, Canada research chair in occupational health psychology at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.

There are also important physical and psychological reasons for taking long breaks away from your desk. In fact, Kelloway says, people are less productive when they don’t take the time to stop and rest.

“I always tell people to imagine doing arm curls with a 20-pound weight. If you keep going until you’re exhausted, you’ll tire quickly. But, if you did two arm curls and then rested a minute, and then did two more and rested a minute, you could go all day. It’s the same principle,” he says.

To gain the benefits of a midday break fully, Kelloway recommends taking a minimum of 30 minutes.

Here are some ways to get started:

– Schedule “lunch” each day

If you’re predictable in when and how you spend your lunch hour, you’ll be more inclined to make it a habit. “We’re so good at honouring and respecting calendar appointments and commitments to others,” says Dawn O’Connor, director and productivity ninja with Think Productive Canada in Calgary. “We can use that psychology to make a commitment to ourselves.”

If you’re turned off by the long lineups and overflowing tables at your local lunch hot spots, you might want to try scheduling lunch during “off-peak” hours – outside the noon to 1 p.m. time frame – O’Connor says.

– Have lunch with your co-workers

Almost 48% of financial services and accounting professionals surveyed wished they had lunch with their co-workers, yet most eat alone.

“You can get the most out of lunching with your co-workers because you have the ability to form informal connections across departments and across functional areas,” says Dianne Hunnam-Jones, president of Accountemps’ Canadian operations in Toronto.

By building those connections, you start to think about the bigger picture at your organization, she adds. And building a support system within the office reduces stress and increases productivity.

– Get some exercise

“Sitting is the new smoking” is a common refrain in the media, and there’s a slew of studies that support the idea that remaining sedentary all day is a bad idea.

In the Accountemps survey, 48% of participants said they wished to hit the gym during their lunch break; only 17% actually made the trip. Although breaking a sweat on the treadmill during lunch may not be for everyone, there are alternative ways to incorporate exercise into your lunch break.

Many companies now host one-hour or 30-minute walking groups at lunch time, Hunnam-Jones says. If you’re living in a climate with cold winters and it’s too chilly to go outside, you still can gather a group of your team members to walk up and down your building’s stairs.

Some cities even are getting creative and communal with their lunch-time exercise options: every Wednesday in Ottawa, for example, hundreds of people gather to practice yoga at Parliament Hill.

“If you commit to a group, you’re less likely to work through your lunch,” Hunnam-Jones adds.

– Avoid social media and email

We are bombarded with so much information on a daily basis, something only exacerbated by our social media accounts, Hunnam-Jones says. Lunch is the time to stop overextending yourself and refresh your brain.

Says O’Connor: “When we allow our minds to wander and relax, we gain fresh perspective.”

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