A 2015 study reported a surprising finding on the length of the work week: Not only did productivity slow significantly around 50 hours, but when employees worked more than 55 hours, they had no additional results to show for their efforts.

This study, like many others, demonstrates the negative impact that long hours and chronic stress have on both the health of the workforce and the company’s bottom line. And yet, the problem of burnout continues to be a persistent and unwieldy problem for companies to manage, particularly among their highest-achieving employees.

Why is this? One big challenge is the perception that you have to be constantly working to keep up with workflow. It’s this lack of rest or periodization in the schedules of most corporate workers that ends up slowing productivity, leading to longer work hours and, ultimately, burnout. Periodization is a physical training term used to describe the cyclical application of stress and then rest that athletes use to achieve peak performance. Recent research studies on optimal brain function indicate this principle is also useful to achieve peak mental performance.

When team members are overworked and under-rested, innovation, creativity and problem-solving all decline. Learning and development professionals are in a unique position to create organizational change to reduce burnout by both leading by example and introducing rest strategies to their teams. This will position your team to be a model of productivity and balance that will have a ripple effect on the organization at large.

Here are three strategies L&D professionals can use to boost performance by introducing periodic rest:

Strategy #1: Minimize the number of late-night and weekend emails you send to your team.

We live in a world where the inbox is never empty, and the temptation is high for leaders and their team members to use evenings and weekends to catch up. The danger in this approach is that the brain, just like the body after a strength training session, requires rest in order to recover and grow stronger after a period of stress (i.e., the workday).

You need a break from work to stay mentally sharp, and so does your team. When you habitually email them late at night or on the weekends, you are keeping yourself and them stuck in “reactive mode,” unable to shift into “rest mode” during time away from work, making them more prone to burnout.

While there may be intermittent periods of time (two to three weeks) where the demands of a project will require after-hours work, night and weekend work should not be a routine operating practice.

Strategy #2: Take paid time off, and encourage your team to do the same.

The World Health Organization estimates that the cost to companies of chronic stress is around $300 billion per year. One remedy for chronic stress is taking time off, yet recent statistics indicate that 61 percent of organizations have employees who don’t use all of their paid time off (PTO). A recent Glassdoor study cited fears about getting behind on work or that no one else can do their work as the most common reasons workers deferred taking time off.

L&D professionals can address those fears by taking regular time off themselves and helping team members make a plan to keep the workflow moving while they are gone.

Strategy #3: Promote lunch breaks.

A study by Right Management found that only about one in five workers takes a break for lunch. While your team may choose to skip a break at lunch because they think they will get behind on their work, research has shown that workers who take short breaks are able to maintain focus longer than those who don’t.

Take a lunch break for at least 15 to 20 minutes, and encourage a team member to eat with you. (Bonus points if you go outside the building!) Getting away from your desk and shifting your environment for 15 to 20 minutes can pay big dividends in both productivity and engagement.

L&D professionals can reduce the likelihood of burnout on their teams, and lead by example to reduce burnout in their organization as a whole, by introducing periodic rest into their schedules. These three strategies — minimizing night and weekend emails, encouraging PTO, and promoting lunch breaks — are all ways they can promote high performance without burnout.