Stress Levels

E-mail vacations can boost productivity: Study

Washington: Being cut off from official e-mails not only lowers stress levels but also allows employees to concentrate far better, says a new study.

During the study, researchers attached heart rate monitors to computer users in a suburban office setting. Software sensors detected how often they switched windows.

People who read e-mails changed screens twice as often and were in a steady "high alert" state, with more constant heart rates. Those who did not read e-mails for five days experienced more natural, variable heart rates.

"We found that when you remove e-mails from workers' lives, they multitask less and experience less stress," said Gloria Mark, informatics professor at the University of California (Irvine), US, who co-authored the study with Stephen Voida and the US Army's senior research scientist Armand Cordello....more