According to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, people who eat out with friends in the middle of the day have more trouble concentrating when they come back to work than those who stayed put for lunch. To come to that conclusion, researchers took a group of 32 women and had half grab a meal with friends at a nearby restaurant, while the other half ate lunch alone at their desks. After the meals, the researchers had them perform a series of simple tasks, like matching shapes to buttons and recognizing faces, to test their brains’ processing post-munching. Those who had gone out to eat showed reduced control over their cognitive functions. The chatter, music, movement, and even colors of eating at a restaurant are distracting, explains study author Werner Sommer, PhD, a professor of psychology at Humboldt-University at Berlin. “The office meal keeps you on your toes a bit,” Dr. Sommer says. “The restaurant meal makes you more indifferent against your own errors—you don’t care so much about your errors after the restaurant. You’re in a liberal mood.” If you have a creative task for the day, a social lunch break outdoors can help refresh your mind and generate new ideas, Dr. Sommer explains. But if you need to be focused and exact, lunching alone could keep you productive. More from Prevention: Boost Brainpower All Day Long
