5 Little Ways To Take Some Better Work Breaks
How do you spend your breaks? When you’ve been sitting in the office for about 4 hours already, or you’ve been behind the customer service counter coping with a non stop stream of terrible customers, what do you do when your boss tells you to go on break? How do you help yourself relax, even just a little bit? How do you refocus your mind and your energy levels, to make sure you feel strong enough to get through the rest of the day?
Work can be hell, we all know this deep down. Having to work five days a week, for at least 8 hours a day, can wreak havoc on our systems. Our sleep schedule goes out the window, and so does any diet we try to keep to, and then our social life can suffer from all the napping we want to do when we get home again!
One study back in 2013 found 30% of over 1000 American workers were unsatisfied with the amount of sleep their work life afforded them — what does that tell you? Does it show you a significant portion of our working society is unhappy with how work makes them feel — and that’s both physically and on an emotional level? Because it should!
And honestly, there’s not much we can do, as employees, to change the structure of the company we work in. Unless we’re in a management position, and we have ties to the top, all we can do is try to develop the way we handle it. And that’s why we need to focus on ways to take better breaks in the workplace; they’re all about recharging your energy and giving your body a chance to recuperate.
Going through a full work day without a break is not only illegal, but it’s also terrible for your health and wellbeing. You can only do your best work when you’re feeling your best, and if you’re someone who’s very career minded (and there’s nothing wrong with a little ambition!), you shouldn’t let it get in the way of your potential productivity.
So if you’re someone who’s finding yourself just a little too out of sorts with the way your job is making you feel, let’s talk about 5 ways you might just be able to take a better break. Even if you’ve only got 20 minutes to enjoy some downtime, you can make those minutes count.
- Put the Phone Down
Not to sound like an anti-technology rhetoric here, but it’s quite possibly the most important thing to realise about taking a better break. If you’re reaching for your phone as soon as the clock tells you it’s quarter past 12, try and stop yourself. Truth be told, you’re probably not doing yourself any favours.
You see, the more you reach for your phone when it’s ‘break time’, the more you ingrain in your mind that trying to relax involves using your mobile. And we all know apps love to use certain colours to try and keep us awake at night, so they’ve already set us up for a loss before the work day has even started!
Using your phone whilst you’re trying to take a break doesn’t do much in the effort of helping your brain to refocus. It simply wastes minute after minute, and you get more and more absorbed in something that can be really quite taxing on those neurons of yours. If you’re on your phone, you’re a lot more likely to overrun on the time you’re allowed for a break, and you’ll find yourself getting back to your station later than you should.
Whether you like to surf through social media, or get in touch with people you love more than the ones working around you, it’s better to try and limit yourself. Put the phone out of your reach, and out of your sight, to try and keep it out of your mind.
2. Step Away From the Screen
So a lot of us are fans of having a working lunch and staying at the desk, or heading into the breakroom to lock eyes on the TV screen on the wall for the next 15 or so minutes. But when you think about it, you spend most of the day looking at a screen — what could that be doing to your eyes?
We already know it’s time to put the phone down, but it’s also time to get up and take a couple of minutes training your eyes on something else. It’ll help lessen the strain you might be feeling in them, and your pupils can get s-e-r-i-o-u-s-l-y dry from staring at thousands of pixels hour by hour.
It’s a simple enough task, so it won’t be hard to manage when you’re desperate to stretch your legs, and to just get up and take a few minutes for yourself, away from your colleagues and your boss and all of the customers. Take a peek out of the window even, whilst clutching a nice cup of coffee in your hands to help warm up the cold settling in your soul.
3. Eat!
Eating is crucial for good health, and eating something high in fat and laden with salt is miles better for you than not eating at all. Food is fuel, and that’s something your body needs a healthy intake of; grabbing a chocolate bar or a packet of crisps every now and then is definitely going to help you replenish those energy levels.
When your breaks roll around, be sure to get up for a snack. Don’t let yourself sit through without something to chow down on, simply because it seems easier like that. We tend to feel guilty about the number of calories we want to consume during the day, especially when we’re at work.
We can feel a bit like we’re letting ourselves go, because we need a lot of the fast (and often fattening) carbs to keep us going. But when you don’t eat, your brain can start to wander… it’s why so many of us consider ‘hangry’ as a personality trait at this point. But you need it, so go ahead and eat! You’re not bothering anyone, and you’re definitely not ruining your diet.
4. Find a Quiet Place
The workplace can be a real hustle and bustle. It can be loud and stressful, and extremely overstimulating for anyone who doesn’t thrive off of an active social environment. A lot of us find it a bit too much, especially after 4 hours of non-stop grind, and it’s absolutely necessary to try and get away for a few moments.
So let yourself! Don’t force yourself to stay and sit it out; it won’t make you any less capable of the job at hand. Taking a break that’s right for you and your body is all dependent on what kind of environment you find relaxing, and if you like the quiet, go and thrive in it. Even if you love the feeling the workplace promotes in you, it might be worth it to just try and take a moment for yourself, to give yourself something completely different to revel in.
Because after all, if you have the right atmosphere around you, a.k.a., a quiet tone in the air and likely a bit of fresh air to breathe in, you’re more likely to go back to the task at hand straight-laced and refreshed. And if the only truly private place around you is a toilet cubicle, there are even some mindfulness exercises you can look up for it!
5. Close Your Eyes
And now, last but not least, take the time to close your eyes every now and then. This is one of the best ways to physically remove yourself from the situation, without straight up just going home and going back to bed. Resting your eyes for a minute every now and then can really help you to realign your focus, and even to remind you of your working priorities; closing your eyes puts a clean slate in front of your brain, and helps you to think troublesome things through with a little more clarity.
Closing your eyes can help you to approach a difficult task, giving you the opportunity to think up a new angle, or to just take stock of the situation in front of you. It can help you to blink back a bit of the soreness a long shift can leave in your eyes. It can even help you to count back the frustration a customer that’s talking in a circle is bringing out in you.
So, a little last thought before you go…
The way you take a break at work is entirely up to you. You do what is most effective for providing a distraction, and you do what’s easiest to commit to for the place you work in. No one can tell you how to spend your free time, even when you’re at work.
But maybe a couple of these little techniques are worth a try? They’re quite simple to do, and they won’t take much time out of your break time as a whole; they might just be the refreshing mint you’re looking for to clear out the aftertaste a bad shift can leave.
