A study shows that employees, who did exercise on work days, become stress free, happy, more efficient, calm and productive. Researchers conducted the study on 200 people at the Bristol University, included university staff and employees working for a pensions firm and an IT company. Everyone completed a questionnaire about their mood, workload and performance on days they exercised. Researchers found that employees who exercise during lunch breaks – improved their concentration, felt more energetic and calmer and better equipped to handle the problems.

According to lead researcher Jo Coulson, “Our statistical results were important. On exercise days, people's mood significantly improved after exercising. Mood stayed about the same on days they did not, with the exception of people's sense of calm which deteriorated.” He added, “Critically, workers performed significantly better on exercise days and across all three areas we measured, known as mental-interpersonal, output and time demands.”

The study, published in the ‘International Journal of Workplace Health Management’ showed—71% employees reported improvements in time management on exercise days compared to non-exercise days; 74% reported that they managed their workload better and 79% said that their mental and interpersonal performance was better on exercise days. 

Jo Coulson suggested, “If people try to fit an active break into their working day, they might also experience the added bonus of their whole day feeling much more productive. And that always feels good in our busy lives.”