Making space in your schedule for the gym can seem hard to justify. But if you really want to shift that pile of paper and feel better about your 9-5, a quick training session has now officially been signed off. Psychologists at the University of New England found that both strength training and cardio negate the impact of stress due to overwork. In their studies, researchers asked volunteers to train three times a week for 28 days, with sessions lasting 30 minutes.
They found that cardio reduced emotional exhaustion while weight training increased participants’ sense of personal accomplishment. Crucially, the half-hour workouts were done at high intensity. Swap out time-sapping isolation moves in favour of full-body circuits, and trade ambles around the local park for 3-kay time trials. You can consider your risk of workplace burnout well and truly doused.
Go hard, go back to work for a while – then go home.