Using Your Lunch Hour to De-Stress: Our Four Top Tips
No matter how committed your company is to good workplace practices, there’s no denying that the role of CEO is a stressful one. With the burden of managerial decisions falling solely on your shoulders, your workday is likely to consist of a round of essential and important choices, lots of paperwork, and plenty of problem-solving to boot.
This can make it incredibly hard to switch off come the end of the day. By the time you get home on an evening, your stress levels are likely to have soared and you’re probably already turning your mind to the professional dilemmas of tomorrow.
This is why it’s handy to teach yourself a few simple ways to de-stress in the office. Give these four top tips a go in your lunch hour and you’ll feel a whole lot more relaxed come the close of your workday.
Meditate and focus on muscle relaxation techniques
We know it might sound a little New Age, but meditation can be a fantastic tool in helping to keep your stress levels to a minimum. Medically proven to aid relaxation, it’s a great way to calm both mind and body, even if you don’t have a lot of time to spare. One of the best places to learn about it is YouTube, which is filled to the brim with free videos on progressive muscle relaxation, most of them ranging from around six to thirty minutes in length. These will fit perfectly into your lunch break and are an excellent way to wake up your body, recharge your brain, and loosen and relax stiff and aching muscles.
Take a walk outside
There’s also research to suggest that going outside and taking a walk can be a really effective way to decompress. It doesn’t matter whether you drag a friend or co-worker along with you or go alone, so long as you put yourself into a different setting and get those endorphins flowing. This helps on two different levels: firstly, it takes your brain out of the stressful office environment and gives it a chance to have a break from what goes on there; and secondly, the exercise element helps to get those feel-good hormones flowing.
Try some snus
Did you know that one of the most popular ways for athletes to relax is with a dose of snus? Designed to give users a tobacco hit without them having to light up, these flavored powders are used by everyone from footballer James Vardy through to F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen, to deliver the relaxing rush of smoking without the performance-lowering side-effects. You’ll often see top sportspeople slipping some under their upper lip following a hard workout or a difficult match, to help them unwind and destress. There’s a useful source here if you’d like to find out more about what it is and how it works.
Slip between the pages of a book
Last but not least, why not take your current read to work with you? There’s lots of evidence to suggest that escaping into the pages of a book is a great way to relax your body and take your mind away from the stresses and strains of your workday. Fiction is especially recommended for those who need a mental recharge mid-day, as it helps to pull you out of the real world for a while and makes you forget everything else going on around you.
Which of these methods do you think would work best for you?
