If the strain of a worker overruns the permanent
work load, it may increase the danger of an acute or chronic damage.
Therefor breaks for recovery are necessary and should actively be
provided by the employer.
The minimal duration of this break should
correspond with the strain over the permanent work load to bring enough
compensation to the overrunning strain. We call it “shortest break”, because it
should not be shorter than the given duration in order to fulfil its
requirement. In the figure below, we have three working situations:
-
The
green line shows a work, where the strain (here indicated with the heart beat)
during the working time does not run over the permanent work load. So, the
shortest break is zero, no compensation is required.
-
With
the yellow line, the permanent work load is reached but not overrun. Also here,
we don’t need any break.
-
At the
red line, the heart beat is for a long time over the permanent work load. Here
a debit increases that needs to be compensated. This debit can be interpreted
by the area A1. In the first seconds of the break the heart beats
are higher than the permanent work load; so, though they are decreasing, the
heart beats (A2) are counted as overrunning strain, too. The break
is long enough, when the area A3 between heart beats and permanent work load is
as large as the sum of A1 and A2. Now the compensating
effect is enough.
There are three other types of breaks
that have other effects:
- organic breaks allow some organs to be
unloaded while the load is taken over by other organs; one example is to move a
heavy load from one hand into the other hand
- short breaks of five minutes are for
personal belongings and to recover the mind from concentration
- longer breaks with 15 to 30 minutes
allow to take lunch and to communicate with other colleagues
