Work stress can be overwhelming. It can affect your concentration, memory, and overall work performance. Fortunately, there are ways you can de-stress yourself while at your desk. By de-stressing yourself at your workplace, you don’t have to miss any real work and you’ll be able to cope with stress to a greater degree. When you improve your stress coping skills you improve your health, since chronic stress does have a very adverse effect on your body, organs and wellbeing.
Here are some quick ways to de-stress at your desk every day:
- Take the time to meditate – Meditation can be done just about anywhere, even at your desk. Take your shoes off and relax your muscles. Close your eyes if you can and focus on your breath and on relaxing your muscles, one muscle group at a time. It takes just a few minutes to feel more relaxed and capable of continuing your tasks with less stress in your system than you had before you started meditating.
- Practice guided imagery –Guided imagery involves imagining yourself in a lovely place, like a beach, a forest, or a meadow. Use all your senses to imagine yourself in that place, no matter how far away from the place you physically are. After a few minutes, your stress will be better and you’ll be able to continue on doing what you had been doing.
- Sip green tea with lemon – Green tea with lemon can be a refreshing break form the stress of work, whether or not it is hot tea or cold tea. Green tea is high in anti-oxidants, which will help you fight off any infections you might be exposed to at the workplace.
- Call a friend – If you are allowed to make phone calls on the job, take the time to call a friend or loved one and talk about anything other than work. Take a few minutes to set up a time where you can have fun or enjoy yourself so that the stress of work can fade away and you will have something unrelated to work to look forward to.
- Take of your shoes – No one will see if you take off your shoes and wiggle your toes under your desk. This will make you feel more like you’re at home and not slaving away on the job. Keep your shoes off as long as you can so that you can feel more relaxed, suffering from less stress than you did when you had your shoes on.
- Do some doodling – Take out a fresh piece of paper and a pen and draw a picture. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy—just whatever comes to your mind and hand. Doodling can relax you and can lessen your overall level of stress. You can take a few minutes out of every day in order to add to a doodle you started a few days ago until you have filled the page.
- Get up and stretch – While you can’t do yoga on the job, you can get up and stretch your muscles. Your muscles become all bunched up working at a desk or in front of a computer all day long. A few minutes stretching at your desk will relax you and de-stress the emotions going through your head.
- Say a prayer – A brief prayer at your desk will not harm anyone and may do you a lot of good. Too many people let go of their spirituality and don’t think about it at all, especially at work. Take a few moments to say a favorite childhood prayer. If you’re not all that religious, read a passage from a poetry book to calm your mind so you can go on to work with a clear head.
- Use a stress ball – These soft balls allow you to release pent up tension by simply rolling the ball around in your hand.
- Take a walk – Even a 5 minute walk around the office, or if you have time around the block can reset your mind, and body, and release tension and stress. It is also key to keeping yourself from becoming a victim of sitting disease.