Corporate Personal Wellbeing yoga and relaxation guru, Linda Dixon, gives us her top tips to de-stress for work.
Is your to-do list longer than you would like? Are you up against an important deadline? Do you have to run errands during your lunch hour (if you even have time to take a lunch break)?
The tasks of the day can sometimes pile up oppressively, and before the day has even got going.
Being ‘on-the-go’ in this way puts us in an adrenalised state, aka makes us feel stressed. Lots of very subtle things can happen when we are stressed that we often aren’t even aware of, such as:
Blood pressure rises, breathing becomes shallower, immune response lowers.
There are also some things we may notice but often don’t put down to stress immediately:
Stomachache, headache, interrupted sleep, craving a boost from sugar or caffeine, feeling irritable.
Meanwhile, our to-do list and deadlines persist, along with life, in general, happening apace all around us. What is it like to sit still in the middle of it all?
I love the saying ‘rest is a rebellious act’. In a world where we are told we must be productive to be worthy, it really is. Sadly, the modern working world doesn’t factor in being able to go for a nap when we feel tired, so we must find rest in other ways.
Being able to sit with our eyes closed is one enormously powerful way of shutting off from the sheer amount of stimulus we are bombarded with daily. This may not be possible to do at your desk of course, but maybe a few minutes in your car (safely parked of course) before heading into the office, or a quiet empty room.
If you feel you need a boost, try sitting with your palms facing up in your lap and find an uplifting quality to your breath in.
Need to feel calm? Place your palms down in your lap and focus on lengthening your breath out. The effects of these simple practices are subtle but perceptible.
You can also marry the two qualities of energising and calming to provide an uplifting boost but also a feeling of calm and grounding.
Standing at your desk, take a slow breath in through your nose and lift your arms as far as they will comfortably go. Then, take a long and slow breath out of your nose as you lower your arms down slowly by your sides.
You could play around with arcing over to the right and leg sides to bring more space to the sides of the body; helpful if you sit for long periods.
There are many ways to approach and work with stress. We need it in certain and manageable amounts, but it never improves by ‘soldiering on’.
Becoming aware of the subtle clues stress is present is key and then responding, in however small a way, is the beginning of a changing relationship with stress.
I hope these simple practices come in handy and work well for you when you need a boost or a recharge.