“I THINK I forgot to have lunch lah!” lamented a friend one day. She was wondering why she felt as though she was starving by four in the afternoon.
She had apparently pressured herself to finish a work project and had not realised that she skipped lunch.
Yes, some of you may argue that it is not possible for Malaysians, whose lives revolve around food, to forget lunch. After all, how can one ‘forget’ to eat?
Impossible as it may sound, it is unfortunately true.
In this day and age, it is possible and not uncommon, particularly for those living a fast-paced corporate life filled with deadlines and emails coming through every other minute.
And it is also possible to ‘forget’ lunch especially here in Malaysia where most companies only allow an hour for lunch. An hour for busy people disappears in what seems like a minute.
Eye believe that a lunch break is essential to be productive. And a proper lunch break does not mean nibbling on biscuits or a sandwich at your desk while you manoeuvre your way through paperwork or type on your keyboard.
Most of us rush through lunch. After all we only have an hour to make it to the kopitiam, order, wait for our meal, gobble it down and rush back. Not much time to take a step back from the workday and put our thoughts together.
For those who also have to squeeze in time to pick up their children from school, lunch breaks can be non-existent.
Some of us, trying to make the most of the one hour break and avoiding the hassle of going out, might have a bun or pastry or perhaps fried rice that we tapau (packed) from home at our desks and at the same time try to finish some work.
Others skip lunch altogether having had a heavy breakfast and believing that a good hearty breakfast will see us through the day.
While we may think that we are actually being efficient by working through lunch, experts believe it is quite the contrary.
Former Wall Street trader Frank Partnoy, who is now a professor of law and finance at the University of San Diego, states that other than for obvious health reasons, one important reason to have a proper lunch break is to allow ourselves to slow down and gain some perspective.
According to Partnoy, taking a lunch break allows us to think out of the box.
Senior management of many leading international firms also believe that a lunch break or downtime of an hour or more a day spurs employees to be more creative and strategic.
Unfortunately, these days, technology has also intruded into our lunch hour. We rarely spend our whole time resting, quietly reading, thinking or putting things in perspective.
Instead we are constantly interacting with our ‘smart’ devices checking emails, answering text messages and catching up on social networking sites — which limits human interaction and actual downtime for ourselves.
Partnoy reckons rushed lunches speed us up and we go on an overload and so he suggests longer mandatory lunch breaks for cooler heads and reduced stress.
Of course, most employers would think longer lunch breaks, of say two hours, will affect productivity. Partnoy argues that this would not be the case if lunch breaks are staggered out among the employees.
Health experts are also advocating for employees to ‘reclaim’ the lunch breaks that they take for granted.
According to them, working through lunch will eventually cost corporations and businesses huge financial losses through lost productivity because employees are burned out after being at their desks all day, even if the employees do not realise the burn out themselves.
The health experts recommend lunch breaks to socialise, have a change of setting, rejuvenate, take a power nap and even to exercise or take in some sunshine by taking a walk to an eating place.
Plus, skipping lunch does not necessarily mean that one will be slimmer. It instead messes up our digestive system and brings our metabolic rate down.
It is understandable that we cannot totally avoid working through lunch. There will be several occasions where working through lunch is inevitable, especially for those who are in events management.
But for the sake of sanity, health and work productivity, let’s not make it a habit.
The humble lunch break deserves some attention — attention that will in turn make us better and more productive employees (and employers).