The best day to maximize the benefits of time off and recover well.
Taking a day off or an RTT in the middle of the week is tempting, especially in May when, in many companies, you have to pay off your vacation days. To rest, go to a meeting, go about your business or simply disconnect for a day. But to maximize the benefits of a day off and recover well, you shouldn’t take just any day.
Often, we tend to take time off at the beginning or end of the week, on Monday or Friday, to extend the weekend. However, this is not such a good idea, warns Professor Dawna Ballard, specialist in chronology and the study of time at the University of California at Santa Barbara, in the media Quartz. According to her, even though a long weekend gives you a little more time in your own schedule, it doesn’t really rest you up.
Conventional working days require us in France (for example) to work from Monday to Friday. “However, we all have a different chronotype (our natural rhythm) and work does not take it into account” she explains. This is why Monday morning is particularly difficult for some. “You come back from a two-day weekend where you have your own rhythm and suddenly, you have to follow up with 5 days of imposed rhythm.“So to break this routine rhythm, the specialist indicates that the best day to pose is Wednesday.”This day of rest interrupts the work rhythm imposed from the outside and gives you the opportunity to find your internal rhythms for a day […] Ideally placed in the middle of the week, a free Wednesday creates space on each side and changes the balance between your rhythm and that of your work, in your favor“, she continues.
Posing this day is also motivating from a psychological point of view. “You start the week knowing you only have two days at a set pace and then you return to your own pace: there is a greater sense of calm and control“, she concludes. In addition, there are many advantages to taking a Wednesday off: museums and cinemas are less crowded, transport is less crowded… This same logic explains why teleworking on Wednesdays is so successful in some companies it’s a practice that Professor Ballard says helps keep our inner and outer clocks in sync.