A new study found that moderate exercise may reduce job burnout

Feeling Burned Out at Work? New Research Shows This Type of Exercise Might Help

A new study found that moderate exercise may reduce job burnout

• A new study based on surveys of over 500 employees found that moderate exercise can reduce work burnout.
• Moderate exercise is key—researchers discovered that high-intensity activity didn’t reduce burnout more than lower levels of exercise.
• To reap the benefits of physical activity, experts recommend a mix of high-intensity and moderate workouts in your weekly routine.
  

Many people have experienced job burnout at some point, but a recent study suggests that exercise can help—provided it’s not too much or too little.

The study, published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, examined the work life and exercise habits of more than 500 employees to assess if physical activity affected emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction.

Researchers discovered that it did, but only when the exercise was moderate. Interestingly, high-intensity activity didn’t reduce burnout more than lower levels of exercise.

The general correlation between exercise and job burnout aligns with existing research on the subject, study author Michele Wolf Marenus, PhD, a research scientist at Personify Health and adjunct faculty member at George Mason University, told Health.

However, she explained that this study “adds nuance with regard to the intensity of physical activity, showing the impact of moderate levels on burnout.”

Here’s what else to know about the new research, as well as examples of the types of exercise that may help reduce job burnout.

Investigating How Exercise Influences Burnout

Marenus said the concept of employer-provided exercise opportunities, such as fitness facilities and subsidies, inspired the research. 

“We wanted to shed light on ways that encouraging physical activity might have a broader impact on the employee aside from physical health,” she said. 

To do this, Marenus and her colleagues instructed 520 full-time employees to fill out surveys about their job-related stresses and physical activity habits. She said the survey defined “moderate physical activity” as either:

• three or more days of at least 20 minutes of vigorous physical activity, such as running
• five or more days of a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate physical activity like strength training, dancing, or hiking
• five or more days doing a combination of the two

The researchers then divided the sample into low, medium, and high-activity groups based on their reported “metabolic equivalent” minutes per week. They also considered three aspects of burnout: emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization (when employees no longer see customers as human beings).

Just over half of the participants—about 53%—reported participating in moderate physical activity, with the remaining participants split about evenly among the other two groups.

After analysis, researchers discovered that the participants who reported doing moderate levels of exercise were the least emotionally exhausted and felt the most personally accomplished. The depersonalization scores were largely the same across all three groups. 

These findings “fit with the plethora of previous research that finds that moderate physical activity decreases stress and improves mood, which would explain a decreased sense of burnout in the workplace,” Jamie Shapiro, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Denver specializing in sports and exercise, told Health.

Edward De La Torre, EdD, assistant director of operations at the Chapman University Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, who was not involved with the study, told Health that overall, "the study has academic and practical merit.”

“The quantitative research and analysis were sound, and I believe the correlation between higher physical activity and lower instances of burnout makes intuitive sense as well,” he said.

However, the study does have a few limitations. The team relied on self-reported data, which tend to be less accurate, and only included a small number of participants. “One thousand or 2,000 would be more ideal,” Marenus said.

Why Moderate Exercise May Help With Job Satisfaction

According to Marenus, exercise may reduce job burnout because it involves spending time away from work, giving employees “the opportunity to recover from work-related issues.” Additionally, physical activity allows employees to “replenish resources” such as cardiovascular health, mood, emotional regulation, and memory. 

De La Torre also noted that people who exercise may have higher confidence and more of a sense of control, either because of the physical activity or reinforced by it, and therefore experience fewer instances of burnout.

But why weren’t higher-intensity workouts more beneficial than moderate exercise? One possibility, Marenus said, is that the study’s sample size didn’t include enough participants who were engaging in high-intensity exercise. But she thinks the more likely reason is that it can simply be too demanding to juggle work responsibilities and a demanding workout routine, like training for a marathon.

Another explanation involves the chemicals released during high-intensity exercise. “Engaging in high-intensity exercise, especially for extended periods, can lead to release of higher cortisol within the human body, leading to people being primed for emotional stress and mental fatigue,” De La Torre said. “Therefore, moderate activity seems to be associated with overall balance and wellness.”

How to Exercise to Combat Burnout

Marenus said the ideal weekly routine would be three to five days of “very challenging” exercise combined with “other days where your heart rate is raised, but you could still hold a conversation.”

Some examples of the latter include a brisk walk, biking, yoga, light swimming, and pickleball, Shapiro said.

Marenus said there are also small ways to increase activity in our lives, “from taking the stairs to parking the car further away from the building to encourage more steps.”

To reap the general benefits of physical activity, most experts recommend exercising for at least 45 minutes three or four days a week, while others suggest up to 75 minutes of moderate-to-high-intensity exercise five or six days a week, De La Torre pointed out.

“It takes about seven weeks of consistent effort for biological changes to be registered within the human body,” he said.

This story originally appeared on: Health News - Author:Elizabeth Yuko, PhD