Bad Night's Sleep? Tired Workers Who Took Short Breaks Stayed More Engaged All Day.

Let me be straight with you. Most agents treat a bad night's sleep as a reason to grind harder. Skip lunch. Push through. Make up for it with volume.

A Journal of Applied Psychology paper points the other way.

Sooyeol Kim of the National University of Singapore, Sophia Cho of NC State and Youngah Park of the University of Illinois ran two studies. Ninety-eight U.S. workers filled out surveys twice a day for 10 workdays. Then 222 workers in South Korea did it three times a day for five workdays. The researchers tracked sleep quality, morning fatigue, short breaks and engagement.

The pattern held in both groups. Poor sleep led to a tired morning. Tired mornings led to more microbreaks. And more microbreaks were linked to higher work engagement during the day and lower fatigue at the end of it.

Microbreaks here means short, voluntary pauses. A snack. A stretch. Chatting with a colleague. A crossword.

Read this one carefully. These were daily surveys, not a controlled experiment. It shows a consistent pattern, not proof that the break caused the better afternoon. And Cho's line that a five-minute break "can be golden if you take it at the right time" came from the press release, not a measured result.

Here's where team leaders get it wrong. The study also found people took more microbreaks when they felt their employer cared about their health. Your agents are watching what you do when you stand up from the desk.

So this week, on your worst-sleep morning, put a five-minute break between every big block. Prospecting, then stand up. Listing presentation prep, then walk outside. Write down whether your afternoon calls go better.

And if you run a team, take your breaks where people can see them.

Originally published by Sooyeol Kim, Sophia Cho and Youngah Park in the Journal of Applied Psychology, via NC State University News. Read the full piece here: https://news.ncsu.edu/?p=520224