If you feel like you’re being overworked when you work 40 hours a week, five days a week, you may be right according to recent studies. While many of us wish that we could work fewer hours or days a week, what we don’t know is that cutting back our working hours can actually be beneficial to our health.

A recent Australian study concluded that people over the age of 40 perform best when working a shorter work week, or less hours per week. The study researched Japanese and Australian workers to determine how working hours affect the cognitive abilities of 3,500 women and 3,000 men.

The volunteer subjects performed a variety of tests at different levels of working. The study concluded that working up to 25 hours per week increased the cognitive ability of the participants, but working over 25 hours per week decreased cognitive functions.

So if less work means that our brains function better, does that mean we should quit working all together? Not at all! The study also showed that participants who didn’t work at all had the lowest cognitive functions out of all participants, even below those that worked 40 or more hours per week.

However, working 55 hours or more in one week had an even larger negative impact on brain functions than not working at all. The extra long hours cause stress and fatigue, which researchers believe cause a significant decline in cognitive functioning.

In addition to cutting back working hours, some countries are calling for shorter work weeks as well. It’s no coincidence that people feel better and perform better after having a three day weekend according to researchers.

They say that the stress and pressure that people are put under during a five day work week can cause a number of issues. It can cause physical sickness as well as mental illness. Working an exceptionally large number of overtime has even led some people to commit suicide. Another trend that affects brain functions is the lack of people leaving the office for lunch. Less than 20 percent of Americans leave their office for a lunch break.

Studies conclude that if workers had another day for themselves to spend with family and friends, exercise, and eat healthier, it would lower their stress and blood pressure and have multiple positive benefits for the employee and the workplace.