A study from researchers at the University of Michigan found that reducing use of work-related apps during scheduled off time for healthcare workers resulted in a reduction in stress.
The study recruited over 800 nurses, residents, attending physicians, and other clinicians, and split them into two groups. Before a weekend off, one group was “counseled to turn on automatic responses to email, reduce overall screen time, or delete work apps from their personal smartphones while the other group received no intervention.”
The group that received counseling “experienced double the reduction in reported stress” compared to the group that didn’t. Those who received counseling “had a 1-hour reduction in overall screen time compared to the non-intervention group.”
The biggest reductions in stress came in “participants who uninstalled work apps from their phones.” The researchers will now work on designing “institutional interventions that facilitate deliberate disengagement from work during leisure time, and then test if these translate to less stress, higher engagement, and ultimately improved productivity and innovation at work.”
