Effects of meditation or walking as a microbreak on fatigue recovery during simulated air traffic control tasks

Air traffic control (ATC) is a demanding domain characterized by intense operational demands, including high workload and task complexity that act as significant contributors to operator fatigue alongside other physiological and psychological factors. This study investigates the effects of different types of microbreak interventions on post-task fatigue recovery among air traffic controllers (ATCOs). Using a simplified simulated ATC task, we recruited ATC-naïve participants to evaluate two types of microbreaks-meditation and walking-as well as a control condition without microbreaks. We recorded participants' self-perceived fatigue, eye movements, heart rate variability (HRV), critical flicker fusion (CFF), heart rate, blood pressure, and performance metrics during the simulated task. The results indicate that taking a microbreak is effective in promoting subjective fatigue recovery. Furthermore, microbreaks had a significant effect on the preservation of task performance, with their effectiveness differing across microbreak types. The walking microbreak was particularly effective in reducing operational errors, whereas the meditation microbreak showed a non-significant trend toward mitigating declines in reaction time. The findings suggest that both microbreak types are beneficial for fatigue recovery, but walking microbreaks may confer additional benefits for sustaining operational performance.