Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Lunch is getting close...


...so close I can smell it!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So what are you suggesting Shaune?

Tim Clague said...

Sounds good but you have to go early!

The Uncle said...

You see The Gorv looks all innocent , sitting there in his headphones apparently oblivious to the world around him...when really he having a right old earwig!

I did have difficulty keeping a straight face.

So lunch then? What time and are all five of us up for it?

The Uncle said...

Well it's obviously after that then.

Anonymous said...

Just to make us all feel better about being lunch loafers:

Stress-busting techniques

Written by Christine Webber, psychotherapist and lifecoach and Dr David Delvin, GP

Dealing with stress

Many patients think that the answer to stress is to take tablets – prescribed by a doctor. However, that is certainly no longer the view of the medical profession!

Indeed, virtually all doctors agree that tranquillisers and sedatives are not the answer to excessive stress. Instead, people should try to find simple, natural ways of reducing tension.

Let’s begin by considering some commonsense methods of reducing tension.

Nowadays, many people work long hours. Sometimes this can’t be avoided, but they do need to learn to get sufficient breaks.

Cary Cooper - Professor of Organisational Psychology at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology - has studied the amount of free time office staff have during their working day.

Commenting on a survey conducted by Macmillan Cancer Relief, he extolled the benefits of ‘the break’ as a haven from continual workplace stress, and said it was worrying that 47 per cent of those surveyed admitted that they regularly forego tea and coffee breaks, and that 56 per cent rarely take off the time they’re entitled to for lunch.

Lunch, it seems, has become one of the biggest casualties in our rushed lifestyles.

A recent survey by a fast food chain claimed that 55 per cent of UK workers never take a break for lunch – even though the majority of them believed that by not taking this time off they were adversely affecting their working performance.

Further results from the study show that only 40 per cent of workers take a lunch break regularly, and that only about 20 per cent of all workers actually leave the office environment.

Jane Tobbell, senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Metropolitan University commented that: ‘Time spent away from the office is not necessarily time spent away from productivity. Sitting at the same desk in the same office all day every day will result in poor performance.’

Another survey conducted in 2003 by ICM found that over half the workforce take less than a half hour – which is the legal minimum – for lunch, and that 20 per cent never take a lunch break at all. They conclude that ‘this sort of work pressure is not healthy for the employee and it is not healthy for business.’

However, our nearest neighbouring country, France, has heavily resisted this trend. When questioned in a recent survey, all French respondents said that they never fail to stop for lunch!

It might be argued that this is part of the answer to the ‘French paradox’ of longevity. Scientists have long pondered why it is that the French live longer than the Brits and the Americans. There has been considerable research into the effects of French wines, for example. But perhaps the fact that the French do not eat sandwiches at their workstation, but instead stop for a proper lunch break has more to do with their lifespan than anything else.

Going without lunch – especially if you also stay indoors at your desk in the middle of the day - is not a kind or good way to treat your body or your mind. Human beings were not really built to function in this manner.