Microbreaks in Industrial Settings
Microbreaks – short breaks that you can use to keep your body healthy – are useful and beneficial in any work setting. In office settings, microbreaks usually involve getting out of the chair, away from the desk, and moving around for a few minutes. But what do you do when your job involves frequent movement? What if you’re already on your feet, and you’ve been on them for most of your shift?
Microbreaks are intended to give you some time to recuperate from whatever you’ve been doing. For active jobs, instead of incorporating standing and movement, you’d incorporate the opposite: sitting and resting, gentle stretching, or even just standing still in a nice, neutral position for a couple of minutes. For example, if you are working in a squatting position for 20 minutes, a microbreak might be standing up, stretching your legs and back for a couple of minutes, and then resuming your activity.
Here are a few more things to remember about microbreaks:
Generally, we recommend a microbreak at least once per hour. But, any time you have been doing something really strenuous, or that causes a particularly awkward posture, it’s a good idea to take these breaks more often.
Microbreaks are not formal breaks. There is no set time that you “should” do them. The goal is to be able to give your body a break from physically stressful tasks. This could be as short as 10 seconds to rest from a heavy lift, or a few minutes to stretch your legs and back.
There are many different things you could do that would be considered a microbreak. During your microbreaks, focus on recovering from the activity that was just being done. You can think of it as “undoing” what you were just doing. For example, if you were working with your arms above your shoulders for 10 minutes, a recovery position could simply be resting your arms by your sides.
What you do and how much time you use may depend on several things: how physical the work is, how possible it is to take a break, how your body is feeling, and many other factors. There will be times that the demands of work just don’t allow you to take a break. There may be times that the work is dangerous and requires complete focus on the task. In these cases, wait until you can safely take a few minutes for yourself – but try not to move on to the next task until you’ve taken a microbreak.
Getting a drink of water can be another good activity to do during a microbreak. Especially if you’re working outside in the heat, drinking regularly is about more than just comfort – it’s also about staying safe and avoiding dehydration. If you don’t already take regular hydration breaks, this is something that can be incorporated into your microbreak routine – stop, rest, maybe stretch a little bit, and drink some water.
Microbreaks are often mentioned in the context of office ergonomics, but we don’t hear quite as much about them in other settings. Keep in mind that these small, short, mini-breaks can be used in any setting, no matter what kind of work you do. At the end of the day, an hourly microbreak doesn’t add up to much time at all, but your body will thank you for those few extra minutes to rest and recuperate throughout the day.