Work and Rest: A Topic for Work and Organizational Psychology

A Special Issue of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology

Dormann Christian, Fred R H Zijlstra, Sabine Sonnentag

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2020
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000149876
• Subtopic: Industrial & Organizational Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Research on work and health has mostly focused on the stress caused by the work situation and by job characteristics. However, recovering from the daily strain is also important to maintain a healthy balance between work and private life. Recovery is assumed to take place in people's private (after work) time. Therefore relevant issues with respect to recovery are: the length of the working day, job characteristics, activities people engage in after work, the extent to which people disengage from work, and how work and after-work activities influence this process. These topics are dealt with in this special issue.

The contribution of various types of activities to recovery

John W. Rook and Fred R. H. Zijlstra
Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, and Surrey Sleep Research Centre, Guildford, UK

Stress and fatigue caused by work require daily recovery periods to offset future deleterious consequences to mental and physical health. The aim, therefore, of the current study was to gain insight into recovery processes during a normal week. The main hypotheses were that more time spent on work and work-related activities will have a negative impact on recovery, while more time spent on specific leisure activities would have a beneficial impact on recovery. Using diaries, 46 respondents (average age of 35) provided daily measures of fatigue, sleep, and time spent on recovery activities over 7 days. Recovery activities included time spent on activities that were social, physical, and work-related. Results indicated that whilst low effort and social activities are nonbeneficial to recovery, physical activities significantly predict recovery (i.e., the former increase fatigue whilst the latter decrease fatigue). Sleep quality also emerges as a significant predictor of recovery. The weekend respite appears important to recovery; however, the effect seems already to wane on Sunday evening in anticipation of the Monday workload. The article provides insights into leisure activities and the experience of fatigue.

Work-related stress (i.e., that attributed to the work environment) is now a leading cause of sickness absence and lost productivity within UK organizations (DWP, 2002; Moncrieff & Pomerleau, 2000). Sickness absence (some of which is due to stress) costs British Industry £23 billion each year (CBI, 2001) and it is estimated that 4% of the European Union’s Gross National Product is spent on work-related mental health (O’Driscoll & Cooper, 2002). The prevalence of organizational stress and absenteeism, together with increasing work demands (Landsbergis, 2003), means that knowledge regarding the factors associated with insufficient recovery outside of work is important. This article attempts to address the topic of recovery activities after work during a normal working week in as far as they help to reduce the experience of fatigue and impact upon variables such as sleep, thus perhaps indicating the sorts of recovery patterns that are useful to maintain well-being.

The very nature of work requires investing resources and regulating the amount of effort expended in order to complete tasks effectively; inevitably this leads to fatigue as a result of these regulatory processes, both psychological and physiological. Current indications are that fatigue is a common complaint in the working population, with estimated prevalence rates between 22% and 38% in the Netherlands and UK respectively (Bültmann, Kant, Kasl, Beurskens, & van den Brandt, 2002a; Pawlikowska et al., 1994). Occupationally induced fatigue is the short-term effect of a working day and is primarily experienced after a day of work (Sluiter, 1999; Sluiter, Frings-Dresen, van der Beek, & Meijman, 2001). Self-reports of fatigue in bus drivers were related to increasing job demand, sleep complaints, and other psychosomatic maladies (Kompier, 1988). Rydstedt, Johansson, and Evans (1998) linked aspects of work stress to mental exhaustion after work and research by Sluiter, van der Beek, and Frings-Dresen (1999) showed that aspects of demand at work significantly contribute to a subjective need for recovery.

Sonnentag (2003) has also recently highlighted the importance of recovery for subsequent work behaviour to the extent that recovery during leisure influences both the degree of work engagement and proactive behaviour at work; daily fluctuations in behaviour and attitudes at work were also found to be related to opportunities to recover in the nonwork domain.

Meijman and Mulder’s (1998) Effort-Recovery model provides a useful framework for the psychological study of workload (see Figure 1). Work demands (e.g., working hours) without sufficient recovery, can lead to negative load effects (e.g., fatigue) and longer term losses of function, physical and mental impairment. The work procedure results in physiological and psychological reactions, which in principle are reversible. Under normal conditions, psychobiological systems stabilize at baseline levels when stressors are absent—this return to prestressor levels of functioning is known as recovery, during which homeostasis of physiological and psychological systems is achieved (Craig & Cooper, 1992).

Figure 1. Effort-Recovery Model (Meijman & Mulder, 1998).

CYCLES OF WORK AND REST

It is intuitive that after work a period of recovery is required, perhaps achieved through simple rest or a change of activity. Fatigue and recovery are related concepts: Fatigue is the state that results from having been exposed to work demands, and recovery is the process of replenishing the depleted resources or rebalancing suboptimal systems. Occupationally induced fatigue is a central concept since failure to recover from its effects, evidenced in self-report data (e.g., Sluiter et al., 1999), can lead to negative consequences for health and organizational well-being. Indeed, elevated fatigue scores are used to identify those at risk of absenteeism or work disability (Bültmann et al., 2000), and could theoretically be used to identify individuals who have failed to recover from the short-term effects of a workday. Lack of recovery results in fatigue, thus fatigue can be used as a proxy to recovery; the term “recovery” is used in the remainder of the article to indicate a level of functioning or well-being, as indicated by reduction in fatigue scores.

Nonwork time is essential for recovery since (traditionally at least) work demands are absent. Whilst short-term load reactions are in principle reversible, time is a crucial variable. Occupationally induced fatigue is theorized not to be a problem if adequate recovery time is offered between two periods of exposure to work demands (Sluiter et al., 2001). If the psychological systems used during work are activated during recovery time, or the recovery is insufficient, a cumulative process involving prolonged fatigue, sleep complaints, and psychosomatic complaints may ensue.

Insufficient recovery is predicted to lead to a vicious cycle whereby extra effort needs to be invested at every successive work period in order to rebalance suboptimal psychophysiological states and to maintain performance (Sluiter et al., 1999; Sluiter et al., 2001). In the event of this “nonoptimal” state, occupationally induced fatigue may eventually develop into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Inadequate work-rest ratios are perhaps a causal factor in the development of CFS (Ray, Weir, Cullen, & Phillips, 1992). Sluiter et al. (2001) reported that higher levels of neuroendocrine reactivity after work (indicating poor recovery) predicted a higher number of reported health complaints. In a sense, lack of recovery is a type of sustained arousal. Burnout, which is associated with fatigue and inadequate coping (i.e., recovery), is another longer term health outcome that may be expected.

RESPITES AND RECOVERY PROCESSES

Research has demonstrated the beneficial and salutary effects of a temporary detachment and relief from job stressors on psychological and physiological variables (e.g., burnout, cortisol levels). Hobfoll and Shirom (2001) indicated that a relaxation period between stress episodes allows regrouping of resources. Westman and Eden’s (1997) quasiexperimental studies revealed that burnout scores were lower during and after a 2-week vacation, although the relief was short-lived. Subsequent research has repeatedly demonstrated that stress levels fall during holiday periods (Eden, 2001). Etzion, Eden, and Lapidot (1998) extended the scope of this research to suggest that nonwork time of any sort helps to manage stress and relieve the symptoms of burnout; during and after vacation periods, sabbaticals, and leisure time generally, stress levels decrease and psychological symptoms such as burnout decrease, whilst well-being is enhanced. Physiological field studies have also evidenced decreased cortisol levels during leisure time, in addition to an increase in physiological reactions when work demands increase (e.g., Evans & Steptoe, 2001; Frankenhaeuser, 1989).

Although workers in Europe can normally expect a vacation of some sort during an average year, it seems that individuals require additional chances for recovery, especially when considering that the salutary effects of vacations have been found to fade out quickly, with dependant variables such as burnout and well-being rapidly returning to their prevacation levels soon after returning to work (Westman & Eden, 1997; Westman & Etzion, 2001). Thus, the daily recovery that occurs in the evenings after normal working days or during the traditional weekend respite becomes important to maintaining well-being and performance (Sonnentag, 2003). Various developments in the organization of work are believed to affect the time available for recovery; changes in work arrangements, i.e., the use of ICT, dual career families, homeworking, telecommuting, flexitime, sharing, and negotiating family responsibilities all affect the time available for recovery (Frankenhaeuser, Lundberg, Fredrikson, Melin, Tuomisto, Myrsten, et al., 1989; Roe et al., 1994; Zijlstra, Schalk, & Roe, 1996).

Based on these considerations and other indications that working hours and travel (daily commute to work) can increase stress and fatigue (Frankenhaeuser, 1989; Spurgeon & Cooper, 2001) our first hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 1: The amount of time spent on work and travel tim...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• After work is done: Psychological perspectives on recovery from work
• Recovery opportunities, work-home interference, and well-being among managers
• Learning opportunities at work as predictor for recovery and health
• Job strain, work rumination, and sleep in school teachers
• Psychological detachment from work during off-job time: The role of job stressors, job involvement, and recovery-related self-efficacy
• The contribution of various types of activities to recovery
• Copyright Page