Importantly, recovery happens also at shorter intervals during formal working hours, such as lunch breaks, scheduled breaks, or micro-breaks. Individuals have several possibilities to recover and build new resources, and during more extended periods of free time, such as evenings, weekends, or vacations and sabbaticals. After expending energy over a while, a process of recovery or replenishment is needed. Work demands can deplete psychological resources, having a strong correlation with exhaustion and fatigue. Įnergy, as well as effort, is required in achieving work-related tasks and objectives.

Therefore, a growing body of literature focuses on momentary recovery and energy management strategies during working time. Accordingly, scholars from different areas, from organizational psychology or ergonomics to experimental psychology, have been paying attention to mechanisms related to recovery from effort in both employees and students. Heavy workloads and long hours impede their capacity and energy renewal.

Recent reports highlight the 'human energy crisis' many employees face today. In an 'always-on' culture encouraged by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it is essential to find a balance between being effective at work and having optimal well-being. Therefore, future studies should focus on this issue. 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. A meta-regression showed that the longer the break, the greater the boost was on performance. Sub-groups analyses on performance types revealed significant effects only for tasks with less cognitive demands. 001 k = 9, n = 803), and a non-significant effect on increasing overall performance ( d =. Random-effects meta-analyses shown statistically significant but small effects of micro-breaks in boosting vigor ( d =. The systematic search revealed 19 records, which resulted in 22 independent study samples ( N = 2335).

We searched the existent literature on this topic and aggregated the existing data from experimental and quasi-experimental studies. 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.

No wonder then that a growing body of scientific literature from various perspectives emerged on this topic. Recovery activities during short breaks taken between work tasks are solutions for preventing the impairing effects of accumulated strain.

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