Lose the Email to De-Stress at Work

   By drodriguez  May 22, 2012
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When stress enters into the workplace it may be difficult to ease the anxiety when you’ve got a full workload sitting in front of you. But a new study reveals a simple way to take a vacation from stress in the workplace while increasing productivity.

Business News Daily reports about the University of California (UCI) study that found workers who were cut off from their work email were better able to focus and had lower stress levels than those who were still linked in to email.

The workers involved in the study were hooked up to heart monitors and the results showed that those who were still able to check their work email had higher heart rates and were constantly in a “high alert” state.

The workers who were disconnected from their work email for five full days experienced a more natural, steady heart rate and reported feeling that they were more focused and dealt less with stressful interruptions. The only downside is that workers without email also reported feeling more isolated in the workplace.

Co-author of the study, Gloria Mark, explains how employers might be able to use the study to their advantage in the future. Mark says, “We found that when you remove email from workers' lives, they multitask less and experience less stress.” And she adds, “Email vacations on the job may be a good idea. We need to experiment with that.”

What do you think of the study that finds a correlation between lower stress levels and being cut off from email on the job?

Do you think taking a vacation from email in the workplace would help lower stress levels?
 

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lweaver021 by lweaver021 | RALEIGH, NC
May 24, 2012

Turning off the pesky alerts helps alot!

Ladysteeler by Ladysteeler | GREENSBORO, NC
May 24, 2012

Yes I do because if your checking emails while working and find other tasks, followups in email, they become detractions and keep you from full concentration on the task at hand. Just something else to worry about .

basilandcatnip by basilandcatnip | GARLAND, TX
May 22, 2012

I prefer email over calls, fewer interruptions since I'm replying when I'm finished with tasks and email requires less time per email than the equivalent call. The trick is schedule times in the day that you look at emails and reply in one block of time (unless it's a 911 issue) vs checking every few minutes and replying to each one.