Are you stressed during back-to-back meetings? It’s all in your head! A spike in brain activity associated with mental exertion occurs when you skip pauses
- Microsoft researchers found changes in the brain from back-to-back meetings
- People who have endured one meeting at a time for four hours have a surge in beta activity that is associated with increased stress levels
- The result was exhaustion, lack of concentration and fear of the next meeting
- Researchers found that just a 10-minute break is enough to reboot the brain
New research shows that the stress you feel during back-to-back meetings is all in your head.
Microsoft’s Human Factors Lab examined participants’ brains for electrical activity as they went through meeting after meeting without breaks, and observed an increase in beta wave activity — a trait seen with mental exertion.
The team also studied another group who took 10-minute breaks between meetings and found that beta activity decreased, allowing the person to reset and perform better at the next appointment.
The Microsoft researchers said these results prove that breaks are necessary to improve people’s ability to focus and engage during meetings, and suggest that even a glass of water or stretching is enough to clear your head to get.
Participants wore an EEG cap to monitor brain activity while enduring four hours of meetings. Those without breaks had an increase in beta wave activity — a trait seen with mental exertion
The study was released in 2021 at a time when much of the world was working from home and all meetings were being held online due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But now that the world is back to normal and offices are filled with staff, face-to-face meetings are once again eating up people’s days.
And the study is still valid.
About 14 volunteers were fitted with electroencephalogram (EEG) devices – a cap to monitor electrical activity in their brain – while attending meetings.
To assess whether people are engaged or withdrawn, researchers examine a brain wave pattern known as frontal alpha asymmetry (the difference between right and left alpha wave activity in the frontal area of the brain). Those who took breaks showed positive asymmetry
On the first day of the study, the group attended four consecutive half-hour meetings, with each call dedicated to a different task and no breaks.
The following day, participants went through another round of four half-hour meetings, but this time they had a 10-minute break between each session.
“As we’ve seen in previous studies, the average activity of beta waves — which are associated with stress — in two consecutive hours of consecutive meetings increased over time. In other words, the stress just kept piling up,” Microsoft said in a press release.
“But when participants were given the opportunity to rest through meditation, beta activity dropped, allowing for a ‘reset’.
Without rest, beta wave activity in the brain can spike at the beginning and end of meetings. This suggests that by the end of one meeting, people are stressed about the next
The team also studied another group who took 10-minute breaks between meetings and found that beta activity decreased, allowing the person to reset and perform better at the next appointment
This reset allowed attendees to walk into the next meeting feeling relaxed compared to those who didn’t have breaks and were stressed just thinking about the next meeting.
The researchers also analyzed the difference in right and left alpha wave activity across the front regions of the brain, known as frontal alpha asymmetry, which correlates with higher engagement during the meeting.
Positive levels were found in brainwave patterns in participants who took breaks, and those who ran back-to-back meetings showed brain stress.
These individuals also reported that it was harder to focus and engage in the sessions.
Michael Bohan, senior director of Microsoft’s Human Factors Engineering Group, who oversaw the project, said in a statement, “Our research shows that breaks are important, not just to make us less fatigued at the end of the day, but to improve our skills actually improve to focus and engage during those meetings.’