Two days off is not enough, you need at least three. British professor John Ashton suggests that working week should be reduced to four days to lower the level of stress many working people suffer.
Ashton has long been studying the optimal length of the working week and has concluded that four days is just perfect. A working week with only two days off creates a situation of deep stress, which leads to having little rest and paying less attention to family and close people. The research has shown that working five days a week leaves very little time for family, sports and hobbies – and a regular lack of time causes depressions and stress situations.
The researcher claims that a weekend consisting of three days can considerably improve the psychological quality of people’s lives. He is sure that only a four-day working week can make a person happy. Three days is enough to spend time with family and friends, raise one’s mood, do hobbies or sports and so on. Having a three-day rest benefits personal and family relationship, and, as a result, we get a healthier society and a smaller number of diseases.
For reference
A hundred years ago, a 40-hour working week seemed a fairy-tale. At the brink of the XVIII-XIX centuries, it was normal for European factory employees to work 14-15 hours a day, with a 30-minute rest three times a shift. The law about an 8-hour working day and a 48-hour working week for adult men was first adopted in Australia in 1856. The Soviet Russia was the first in Europe to reduce the working day to 8 hours.
Two days off – Saturday and Sunday appeared in France in 1936. Two years later, the USA passed this law. Since 1960s, laws began to limit overtime and significantly reduced payment for it.
Modern sociological surveys prove that a person works most effectively if his or her working day is no more than 6.5 hours.
