Breaks are Needed

[Dasavur]

Hey everyone, I have been having these thoughts for quite a few weeks now about breaks and our productivity and so I thought I'd do a bit of research of my own. Here are two pages that have very good points that I found explained a lot of stuff that I kind of already knew but didn't quite understand and are overall a very good source to read for your every day life.

Often times I find myself slacking more and more as a raid goes on. Not only that but in several cases that I've witnessed, a raid has cut back on break time to get more in and slowly with more and more break time being cut the productivity of the time we have is also cut. Though the productivity is cut much more dramatically than the breaks and what do we often do to fix that? Take away more breaks! I mean, "Hey, if people don't take breaks than they won't get distracted during game time right...?"

I am posting this to suggest more breaks. Not only more breaks though, but to encourage everyone to actually get up from your computer and do something other than sit there and wait for the break to be over. I know I've caught myself doing this often. A break will start, we'll have 10 minutes, and I'll be sitting there watching the screen for 8 of those minutes waiting for the break to be over despite the fact that I'm the one that asked for the break in the first place. Get up, stretch, do some push-ups, do something that takes you physically, mentally, and emotionally away from the computer and the game. I've recently started doing push-ups and curls with small weights I have sitting in my room periodically throughout the raid because A) it helps with my stress levels (just like the sports player in one of these articles) and B) it takes me away from the computer, even if just for 30 seconds to a minute, it's a break nevertheless...

So here are the links; Link 1 (Which mainly talks about the stress levels, how they are created, and ways to reduce them), and Link 2 (This one mainly talks about the importance of taking breaks and gives some examples). If no one else reads these (which I recommend anyone who gets stressed about anything in life to take 5 min per link to read and reflect), I would at least like for the leaders of each raid to read them and consider what they say. It will give you insight in to what's happening in your raid and why it's happening. Who knows, after taking in some of these suggestions you may see a dramatic increase the in productivity in your raid.

 

[ben777jil]

Hey Jayse, I wrote a paper on this in college...

Something that neither of your links are showing or explaining is that all the research is done on 8-10 hour work days... so while you're moving it into a raiding mindset it all changes. I know on fail pug we only have 3 hours a night (no you can't say 6 hours a week because there's a day break in there). We usually take a 5 minute break in the middle of it, and with the afks from people we tend to get about the amount of breaks needed in your papers.

If you can find me something that says more breaks in a 3 hour work day are needed, I'll let it weigh in a little more!

 

[Dasavur]

In both they use the EXAMPLE of an 8-10 hour shift. Though in both they also demonstrate why people get stressed out and start losing focus (which applies directly to what is happening on raid nights).

We’ve also successfully used our stress resilience model with University of California, Berkeley students who were struggling with test anxiety. We found that when the students studied for hours, nonstop, the retention rate was low, and the student burnout rate was high. Whereas, when the student took a micro-break every five minutes, and a longer break every 90-120 minutes, he or she coped well and avoided allostatic overload.

As you can see, that is not talking about an 8-10 hour shift, that's talking about a few hours of studying which with the way we have been doing things lately raiding seems a bit less fun and a bit more like studying.

Another example of narrow focusing on body arousal sensations, from the sports world, would be “athletic choking.” This is when an athlete becomes narrowly focused on his or her body arousal and then misses the ball. The coaches explain athletic choking by the principle of “double bracing.” For example, when the flexor and extender muscles are tensed simultaneously it makes a person clumsy and rigid.

We always say, "Guys we really need to focus." I think this example is pretty much a real world example to our virtual situations. We go for over an hour of narrowly focusing on things because we are pushed to do so, then we get a 5 minute break, and then it's back to narrowly focusing for the last hour and a half. We focus from the time we step in the doors to the time we are told the raid is over. Trash, bosses, all the same "focus, focus, focus." And then we blame wipes on exhaustion when really it's lack of breaks.

Maslach’s study revealed that the first reason for burnout is work overload, followed by lack of control, insufficient reward, unfairness, breakdown of community, and value conflict.

Work overload: Not too much of it here, if there is any work overload it's if for some reason we keep people past the time they are told it will be over without taking a vote to make sure that everyone is ok with it. When people are told that the raid will be ending at a certain time it's not ok to force them to stay later without consulting them first, as simple as that. And you may argue that no one is "forced" to do anything, but there is a scare that if you leave at the time you were told to leave despite that the leaders want to continue, there will be a consequence for having a life. I don't care if we wiped on rag at 2% and we have 3 minutes left, the raid should be consulted as a team to see if that's what we all want to do. If we don't make decisions as a team how can you call us a team at all?

Lack of Control: RNG is the definition of lack of control and it can get people frustrated a lot of times which causes them to make mistakes. Obviously this can't be helped too much.

Insufficient reward: Obviously that would be loot and even praise. If loot isn't dropping for people when they kill a boss they generally aren't as inclined to kill the boss with as much passion as other bosses. That's no excuse at all for people not killing the bosses with all they've got, that's simply the truth. One thing that I can say I admire about Ryan is that ever since he joined us he gives praise to the healers for keeping us up through all of our mistakes. Saying, "Good job guys." isn't a sufficient praise, it's not depersonalized and while people feel good that they did a good job it's not much of a reward. I'm trying to get better myself at praising people when I see they did a good job at something and I hope the group as a whole is looking to grow in the same way.

Unfairness: This goes along with several things I've already mentioned. Loot, being forced to stay longer (which I admit we haven't been doing too much as of late), and stuff that makes people feel like this raid just isn't that fair.


The whole point of me posting this was to get raid leaders to think and to try out something new to impact the raid a bit. Giving praise where it's deserved instead of yelling at people for making a mistake (which happens on almost every encounter. one person or another has something to say about a crap job that someone else did and it pisses me off), taking 1-2 minutes to say "Alright guys, we downed a boss, take 1 minute to get up from your computer walk around the house, do a few exercises that may get your mind off of the raid/encounters/computer, and meet us back here to continue on with our night. I think 1-2 minutes between each boss with there being 7 bosses in Firelands is fair enough. Everyone was just narrowly focusing for 5-10 minutes straight per encounter and the mental break they need isn't running off to kill more stuff, a 1 minute break would help a raid much more than it would hurt it.


This was never supposed to be specifically about one raid or another just about them in general. All examples that I used that were specified to a raid were only done so as examples. (All of the quotes that I took were from only one of those articles, if needed I can go back to the other one and research 5 more in order to get my point across.)

 

[ben777jil]

ok, so I'll ask again... I'm looking for an example of a 3-4 hour situation...

The first example, Studying is done in the college setting where (having been a college student, and I'm sure others will tell you) you sit and cram for 5 or 6 hours because you didn't study for a test over the week before is slightly different then sitting at a computer playing a game.

The second example, having been a scholarship athlete in college, comes from thinking to much about your activity. You are cautioned lots the day before or even the week before an event to not let it run your life, this is what they are talking about, taking a break from thinking about it, from training for it, not taking a break while doing it.

As for raids going late, I can't remember the last time Steve and I forced you to stay late, and I think it's been more than a month since we've asked you to stay late.

and as for breaks after bosses... I get about 15-20 psts a night from people randomly going afk, and 99% of the time no one knows, I don't care if you go afk, as long as you are around for the next boss fight, or that you are around when you know you'll be needed.

 

[Dasavur]

Whether it's 8-10 hours or 3-4 hours the facts are still the same just scaled down. Just like if we were talking about a 20-30 hour session it would be scaled up.

Just as I can not assume that studying for a test meant 3-4 hours, you can't assume based on your own experience that they are talking about 5-6 hours. Even if you could you admit that 8-10 it applies, 5-6 it is scaled down however still applies, and yet you still can't admit that 3-4 being scaled down it would still apply. Everything scales as I said earlier, whether you're talking about a years worth of work or 2 hours of it, everything scales and the facts are still the facts.

Again I quote about the sports...

This is when an athlete becomes narrowly focused on his or her body arousal and then misses the ball.

To put this in to gaming terms "This is when the player becomes narrowly focused on his or her timing/usage of abilities or situations and then misses the opportunity. (As the body is what is used to in a sport the mind is what is used in a computer game and timing/usage of abilities are generally what are the issues with certain things in the game.)

As I said this was never about one specific raid group, I used Fail Pug as an example however the holding people over the specified time was never specifically tied to Fail Pug as in fact that was coming from the stand point of Friday Knights as that has been happening a lot lately. Just because you're the one that responded doesn't mean that this whole thing is about Fail Pug it never was and it never will be.

Breaks after bosses is more of a team effort. Someone whispering someone else is fine and all but I'm talking about encouraging people to step up and away from their computer 4-5 times a night on top of the 5 minute break in order to take a small bit of time to relax the brain and reduce the stress. Maybe for Fail Pug a specified 1 minute break after each boss isn't what would be best however I'm still going to suggest it as it could relieve stress and improve overall performance. With you getting such a large number of whispers a night for people to afk maybe it's not a specified time to break that we encourage but just that when people start getting stressed out to take a minute, get up, take your mind off the game, and come back relaxed and ready to go again with a great attitude.

Stress builds. As I'll say again and again I'm simply suggesting that raid leaders take in to account that maybe opening the pressure valve once in a while to let some of it loose would help the overall productivity of the raid.

I don't know how many times I'll have to say this but this isn't about Fail Pug, Friday Knights, any other raids, or any leaders of said raids. This is simply about raiding and how to improve. I hope that no one will take any of this as a personal attack but that they will look at it from an open viewpoint and consider my findings.

 

[Dasavur]

Two examples of scaling that I want to point out that I've experienced in my own life:

1) I was home schooled for the last 3 years of my school. The program that I was in is known for their preparation for students to transfer from high school to college instantly. Literally about 90% of all students who graduate from this home schooling program go in to college with an academic scholarship. The founders of this school are 2 people; Howard Berg and Dr. Kuni Beasley. One thing that I was taught while schooling is that when studying for a test to take a 5 minute break every 15 minutes of studying. I did not spend 5-6 hours of studying either. I retained more when I spent 1 hour of studying with breaks every 15 minutes than I did when I spent 2 hours of studying with 1 break at the half way mark. I have personally experience the importance of breaks in smaller amounts of time and the difference that I can make.

Another example of scaling, this one upward. My pastors recently went to Australia to speak at several churches. When they got back they implemented something in to the employees of the church (both of my parents are high valued employees of our church) that they learned from the Australians. That is, take more breaks throughout the year. Australians take several vacations throughout there annual work load while Americans take fewer vacations. What you find is that Australians have higher productivity in their work place because of this compared to Americans.

Just wanted to share 2 examples of the connection between productivity and breaks that were scaled in size compared to the links I first posted.