Five Ways To Practice Self-Care During Your Lunch Break
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Breaks at work are essential for helping you get through the day. All work all day is not good for your mental health and can actually lead to be being less productive and experiencing decision fatigue. According to research, “making repeated judgments or decisions depletes individuals’ executive function and mental resources which can, in turn, influence their subsequent decisions.” Your lunch break is the best opportunity to incorporate self-care into your work day to ensure you don’t burn yourself out. Besides having a hearty meal, you can use that hour to engage in some other activities that help relieve stress. Here’s a few ways to practice self-care while you’re on your lunch break.
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Bring Your Journal To Work
Take a stroll to a nearby coffee shop or park and let out what’s on your mind. Whether it’s a journal entry, poetry, doodle, short story or a drawing, release whatever is on your heart.
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Make Sure You Eat!
Some people take a lunch break and don’t even eat anything. They make phone calls, run errands and do everything except nourish their bodies. You can’t drive a car without any gas in the tank, so why would you go a whole work day without re-fueling your body? If your job is pretty isolating, invite a co-worker or a friend that works close by. Then, you’ll have a great conversation to go with your good meal.
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Read A Book
Reading a book can take your mind off of all the stress you have waiting for you at work. It also gives you something to look forward to as well and may encourage you take your lunch break because you can’t wait to put your nose back into that book. You don’t have to wait until you get home to curl up with a good book and a good meal.
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Meditation
Meditating (after you eat of course) can not only reduce stress, but also increase your attention span, relieve anxiety and help boost your mood. There are different types of meditations, so do you some research and see which style fits you. Metta, a loving-kindness meditation, may be the best for you. Or even Mindfulness meditation, which helps reduce your focus on your negative emotions.
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Listen To A Podcast
There a slew of podcasts on apps like Spotify and Soundcloud that focus on an array of topics like entertainment, politics, crime, mental health and much more. Podcasts like The Read and The Friend Zone are sure to give you a good laugh and food for thought all in one sitting. The Therapy For Black Girls podcast hosted by psychologist Dr. Joy Bradford focuses on mental health and helping listeners “become the best possible version of themselves.” NPR’s Short Wave is daily podcast that gives you a scientific look into things we wonder about everyday, and all in 10 minutes.
