Having parks near workplaces where employees can walk for 15 minutes at lunchtime can be good for business – and so can creating an at-work space where people can do relaxation exercises. A Sianola-lead team reports that “park walk…and relaxation…groups were asked to complete a 15-min exercise during their lunch break on 10 consecutive working days. Afternoon well-being…[was] assessed twice a week before, during, and after the intervention, altogether for 5 weeks…park walks at lunchtime were related to better concentration and less fatigue in the afternoon…Relaxation exercises were related to better concentration in the afternoon…In addition, relaxation exercises were directly linked to lower levels of strain and fatigue in the afternoon. Our study suggests that on days on which employees engage in recovering activities during lunch breaks, they experience higher levels of well-being at the end of a working day.”
- Sianola, C. Syrek, J. de Bloom, K. Korpela, and U. Kinnunen. “Enhancing Daily Well-Being at Work Through Lunchtime Park Walks and Relaxation Exercises: Recovery Experiences as Mediators.” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, in press.
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.
