Original simple psychology

Hi, welcome to the column I read literature for the people ~

I have a friend who has been unemployed at home for half a year and recently found a new job. After returning to the workplace for a week, he sent a circle of friends (the boss and colleagues have been blocked): the class has not been on for a few days, and the "class flavor" is already very strong.

It is said that as long as you have been to work, it will smell like work, and it is difficult to get rid of it. What exactly is "banwei"? In fact, it refers to the unique fatigue of migrant workers.

This issue of "Simple Psychological WEEKLY" focuses on: What behaviors will alleviate/aggravate the "class taste" of migrant workers? You can see:

Those who choose actively are called "real rest"

Learn to fish regularly and correctly.

If you want to double the holiday effect, don’t pile up your work after rework.

Doing this after work can effectively relieve fatigue.

01

Those who choose actively are called "real rest"

I don’t know if you have a similar experience: I want to eat a takeaway alone at noon, but I am dragged out to eat by my colleagues; I wanted to go home after work at night, but my boss called me to sing K songs …

Although it is true that I am not working, my sense of fatigue is increasing.

A study published in the Academy of Management Journal by the University of Toronto shows that whether you have a good rest depends on how much autonomy you have in the activities you do during your rest.

The researchers conducted a two-week daily survey of 103 employees engaged in the administrative industry.

These daily surveys assess the extent to which employees participate in three kinds of lunch break activities (relaxation, work and socialization) and their views on the autonomy of lunch break activities. At the end of each day, employees also need to give feedback on their fatigue level that day.

The results show that:

When the autonomy of lunch break is low, it is especially tiring to carry out more complicated work and social activities, but when the autonomy is high, it is not so tiring.

If the autonomy of lunch break is low, even slight relaxation activities will aggravate people’s fatigue at the end of working days, but having higher autonomy of lunch break does not increase the benefits of deep relaxation activities during lunch break.

At least during lunch break, social activities may hinder people from recovering from fatigue-unless people feel highly autonomous in choosing social activities during lunch break.

So, the next time you face these social activities that you are not interested in at all, I hope you can firmly say, "Sorry, I need to rest now.".

Why is secretary Jin like that

02

It is necessary to fish on time, but how to do it is very important.

"Go to the toilet six times a day for ten minutes each time, and the daily working hours will be reduced by one hour", which is one of the secrets of fishing summarized by contemporary migrant workers.

Although many companies strictly guard against employees’ fishing behavior, clever workers can always think of ways.

In fact, moderate fishing itself is a reasonable and necessary behavior. A study published in Journal of Organizational Behavior by the University of Illinois in the United States shows that a short respite at work can effectively alleviate the sense of job fatigue.

In this study, researchers call the short-term breathing activity at work "Micro-break" and divide it into four types:

Relaxing activities, such as stretching, listening to music, staring out of the window, etc.

Nutritional intake activities, such as eating snacks and drinking drinks;

Social activities: for example, sending WeChat with friends and chatting with colleagues.

Cognitive activities, such as brushing mobile phones, reading books unrelated to work, and planning activities after work.

So what kind of "micro-rest" can help people recover their energy quickly?

The researchers recruited 86 Korean office workers and studied the different types of micro-rest activities they carried out on weekdays, as well as the impact of these activities on TAs.

The results show that:

Relaxation and social micro-rest activities can help people temporarily recover their fatigue at work;

The micro-rest activities of nutrient intake are not helpful to people’s recovery of fatigue;

Cognitive micro-rest activities, on the contrary, increase the fatigue at work.

Why don’t eating, brushing mobile phones and reading, which seem to be resting, help people regain their energy?

Researchers believe that when you eat at work, it may come from a habitual behavior, which will not really help you stop from working. For example, if you have a cup of milk tea at hand, you may continue to look at the computer while sipping a few mouthfuls.

Cognitive activities may require people’s energy at work, just as you need to pay attention at work, so you also need it when brushing your mobile phone.

03

Want to double the holiday effect? Don’t put off the work until after rework.

There are still more than 20 days before the Spring Festival. Has your "pre-holiday syndrome" begun to appear? That’s all for this year’s work. Let’s talk about it next year.

But if you want the energy recovered during the holidays not to disappear too quickly after rework, you’d better not put off all the work until you come back from the holidays.

A study published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior by the University of Constance shows that the sense of relaxation will disappear within one month after the holiday, and the busy working state after rework will accelerate this process.

The researchers recruited 267 participants and investigated their working status, emotional exhaustion and relaxation activities in their spare time after a two-week long vacation.

The results show that:

Holidays can restore people’s exhausted energy, but this effect will end within one month after returning from holidays;

When returning to work, more and higher job requirements will accelerate the consumption of holiday recovery; And more relaxation experience in your spare time after rework may delay this process.

Therefore, if we don’t want to be too painful after coming back from vacation, we may need to make a good work plan in advance. Because on the last day before the holiday, no one should be able to work with peace of mind (who can? ）。

04

Only by "psychological separation" after work can we effectively relieve fatigue.

The normal state of many friends may be: after a day’s work, they don’t want to do anything after work. But sometimes, lying at home or brushing your mobile phone all the time, not only can’t relieve your fatigue, but you feel more tired.

So, what can we do after work to help us really recover?

Newman and other psychologists put forward the DRAMMA framework, a method to classify recovery experiences. In the DRAMMA framework, recovery experiences are divided into six categories, including:

Detachment-recovery detachment: refers to breaking away from work-related thoughts.

Relax: it means a low level of mental or physical activity and little physical or intellectual use.

Autonomy autonomy: individuals can decide their schedules and activities outside work out of their own will.

Mastery: refers to learning opportunities and challenges, resulting in a sense of accomplishment and ability outside the work field.

Meaning: a leisure experience that helps to "get something important or valuable in life"

Affiliation sense of belonging: an activity that makes people feel social support and interpersonal relationships.

Among them, "detachment", which is also called "psychological detachment" in psychology, is the most decisive factor for the quality of rest and recovery. It means that when your body finishes a day’s work, your mind also needs to leave the working state.

If you are just lying in bed, all kinds of work contents are flashing in your mind; Or you are brushing your mobile phone, but the company’s group news keeps popping up …

These situations may interrupt the state of psychological separation, make you feel that you are still working, and thus deepen the sense of fatigue.

A study published in "Organizational Psychology" by Mannheim University in Germany further found that positive thinking about work or psychological separation from work can make people get a better recovery experience.

The researchers recruited 122 college students and 159 office workers, who were randomly divided into five groups after finishing their day’s study or work tasks.

The first two groups of participants will be guided into a state of psychological separation by researchers, and the last three groups of participants will be guided by researchers to recall happy events, stress events or non-specific events they encountered in their work/study tasks today. After a certain period of time, the researchers will test the participants’ status.

The results show that:

Compared with negative or unspecific thinking work, psychological separation will make people get a better state.

Positive thinking about work is often better than psychological separation: among students/office workers, positive thinking about work can make people have a more positive state.

If you did a good job today, thinking about your work may make you happier.

But if today is just a dull or even a bad working day, forget it, because the simplest way to rest is "don’t-want to-think".

Ok, that’s it for this issue of weekly! If it helps, remember to forward it to your workmates. See you next time!

references

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Trougakos JP, Hideg I, Cheng BH, Beal DJ. 2014. Lunch breaks unpacked: the role of autonomy as a moderator of recovery during lunch. Acad. Manag. J. 57:405–21

Micro-break activities at work to recover from daily work demands.Sooyeol Kim,YoungAh Park,Qikun Niu.Journal of Organizational Behavior.https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2109

Kühnel J, Sonnentag S. 2011. How long do you benefit from vacation? A closer look at the fade-out of vacation effects. J. Organ. Behav. 32:125–43

Sonnentag, S., and Fritz, C. (2015). Recovery from job stress: the stressor-detachment model as an integrative framework. J. Organ. Behav. 36, S72–S103. doi: 10.1002/job.1924

Sonnentag S, Niessen C. 2020. To detach or not to detach? Two experimental studies on the affective consequences of detaching from work during non-work time. Front. Psychol. 11:560156

Author: green beans

Planning: Jianghu side

Cover: Gomatsu

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