The impact of active breaks in the workplace on sedentary behavior and stress perception: a lifestyle medicine perspective

Abstract

Introduction: With technology, sedentary lifestyle in the workplace has increased. Studies on interventions to reduce occupational sedentary behavior indicate benefits in the perception of stress in people who spend most of the day working sitting. Objective: To investigate whether a routine of active breaks in the workplace impacts sedentary behavior and stress in a group of administrative professionals. Methods: Exploratory descriptive study with 70 professionals, 89% women (35±9.4 years). The 25-week procedure included lecture, support and support via an app. Initially, the group answered a self-report questionnaire validated in other previous studies to identify sitting time, frequency of active breaks, exercise frequency and perception of stress, and were instructed to practice a moderate to vigorous Active Break, of 3 to 5 minutes. in the morning (10am) and another two hours after returning from lunch (3pm). During the procedure, they were encouraged to maintain their leisure-time physical activities and, after the 25th week, we reapplied the questionnaire. For analysis, we applied a descriptive frequency test and the Wilcoxon test. Study was approved by ethics committee no. 5,572,893. Results: After intervention, the group began to take active breaks daily (p<0.05), reduced sitting time for more than 10 hours in a working day (p<0.05), increased weekly exercise practice (p <0.05) and reported feeling less perceived daily stress (P<0.05). Conclusion: The practice of active breaks in the workplace apparently had a positive impact on reducing behavioral sedentary lifestyle and the perception of daily stress in the group, and could become a simple and viable strategy for promoting movement and managing stress, corroborating the perspectives of lifestyle medicine.