Sip Away Your Cares with a Coffee Break

By: Angelina Pyrkins..

All people need to rest. It's a part of human nature. In nearly every job, you are typically allotted ten to twenty minutes to take a coffee break.

Most everyone who works for a living sees coffee breaks as vital parts of employment. After a few hours on the job, it's a little ray of sunshine and something to look forward to.

Even kids are raised with the notions of coffee breaks. Recess, after all, is the preadolescent form of the coffee break. Ever since we were children, we were taught that we needed to take a break and get some rest. To school children, recess is the one time of day that they can be themselves without feeling the pressures of the classroom.

What makes coffee breaks so important?

Even if you don't drink coffee, you probably understand that a coffee break means so much more than a cup of that powerful brew. Coffee breaks are a time to kick back, relax, cool down a little, and recharge your energy for what's coming next.

A coffee break is something of a metaphor for life. We are only human, and so we need to take coffee breaks. We simply can't work all day without any rest. Even God took a little break after creating the world.

Machines, like people, need to take breaks during the day. Otherwise, they'll overheat, overstress and eventually break down. Maybe we're not that different from machines, after all. We all need to take a coffee break to keep cranking out the work.

When you're feeling blue and tired of your job, you don't really look forward to retirement, do you? You're anticipating that coffee break and what comes with it. You look forward to chatting with your co-workers, to a cup of stimulating coffee, and to a snack and time to think and plan ahead.

We do have futures and long-term plans to look forward to, but we all need something in the meantime that's more immediate until those plans come to fruition. A coffee break is much like sleep: You look forward to it, but you know you can't have it forever, because if you sleep forever, then you wouldn't have a chance to live. You eagerly anticipate that coffee break because it would allow you a chance to rest, but you know that you have to earn money, so you don't want to be on a coffee break the rest of your life.

Time holds so much importance in today's society. Even the most time-conscious person, however, will agree that coffee breaks are a much-needed component of productivity.

A coffee break is a time to refresh yourself, to assess your work and to decide your pace. It is a time to reflect on what you've done and think about what to do next. On a coffee break, you can clear your thoughts without the pressure of the clock.

People need to socialize, even at work. Have you ever held a job for months or even years, and you still don't know the person sitting next to you? Go ahead and get acquainted.

Lunch breaks have a different motivation. They are a requirement because we need to eat. Lunch breaks are the times when we recharge our overused batteries. They don't offer the same comfort that coffee breaks offer.

This comfort is what makes a coffee break so special. It encourages people to gather together, to interact and to connect. The coffee break is important because we all need a time to rest. But we don't have to look forward to resting in peace -- at least not yet.