“Right! This is it!” If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that in the Castle office I’d now be sipping champagne on a tropical island with Johnny Depp carrying the nibbles.

The vow made, my colleague dives feverishly into a mixed leaf salad. And two minutes later looks around with a baffled ‘was that it?’ expression. By the end of the week they’re back tucking into a roast pork and apple sauce bap and I’m preparing to collect another metaphorical pound.

But whatever we eat, most of have lunch sitting at our desk. And why not? After all you’ve got that report to finish. Those two articles you saw online that you really ought to read. Not to mention the remorseless drip of e-mails through the morning…

So eating your lunch at your desk is the obvious answer. More working time equals more productivity equals more success at work. No wonder 65% of Americans eat lunch at their desk every day and around 80% of people say they rarely take a proper lunch break.

Except that exactly the opposite is true. All the evidence – from both sides of the Atlantic – now suggests that eating lunch at your desk is precisely what you shouldn’t do.

• First and foremost you’ve been sitting down all morning. Get up, get out and take a walk. I’ve written previously about the health problems we’re causing ourselves with our sedentary lifestyle. Lunchtime is the perfect time to take a walk, get some endorphins flowing round your body and lose some of that stress. Certainly we’ve no excuse at Castle: the park is sixty seconds from our front door, the beach about five minutes.
• Secondly, eating at your desk sees most people eating unhealthily. A sandwich, a packet of crisps and a Coke is not the answer. (Yes, I know the answer is the pasta salad you made the night before, but how many of us have the time to do that consistently?) Go for a walk, and suddenly buying apples, bananas and a bottle of water on the way back is a lot easier.
• Exercise makes you more creative. We’ve all sat at our desks and willed ourselves to come up with a great idea. It doesn’t happen. Great ideas, eureka moments, are far more likely to arrive when you’re watching the waves roll in than when you’re staring desperately at your screen.
• Back to that report you need to finish: the best way to finish it is to have a proper break at lunchtime. All the research now shows that sitting at your desk through lunch makes you less, not more, productive. Everyone knows the feeling of ‘hitting the wall’ at 2:30 in the afternoon – invariably it happens to me after I’ve spent lunchtime sitting at my desk.

 

 

• Lastly – and rather ominously – your desk may not be the most hygienic place to eat. As far back as 2008 the BBC were reporting that keyboards harboured more bacteria than the office toilet. Headlines like Average Desk has 400 times more Bacteria than a Toilet Seat now litter the internet. The reason? Crumbs in your keyboard. And yes, I’m as guilty as anyone. Turning my keyboard upside down was not a happy experience…

Fortunately, the cavalry – in the shape of Eamonn from Castle – is galloping to the rescue. He strongly recommends Cyber Clean Putty for your keyboard. Amazon says £2.99 but Eamonn says pop round to Poundland. Yes, you’ll come back to work and look like you’re playing with plastimmcine, but it’s a price worth paying…

With that I’ll leave you to enjoy the weekend. Next time I’ll be looking at something else we’re all doing that we shouldn’t be doing: wasting time at work…