Microsoft did a study to see the effects of taking breaks on a persons stress levels. They studied a brainwave pattern called frontal alpha symmetry. The study proved that the people who took breaks had positive asymmetry (meaning less stress), and those who didn’t take breaks had negative asymmetry (meaning more stress).

Also, a study was conducted about the effect of ‘over learning’ on the brain, and some students studied vocabulary 10 times in the time without any breaks and other students studied it 5 times but with breaks. Once they tested this knowledge they found that although at the time the people who read the list 10 times got a perfect score, when they retested this knowledge a month later the people who took study breaks got better scores and had kept the knowledge in their brain for longer.