We’ve all been there – after a long day at work we are finally relaxing at home and yet our minds are still at our desk, tangled up in the day’s tasks.
Though our workday is done, our minds are still lingering on the job we have left behind. Or perhaps even looking ahead to the next day and everything we need to get done.
We all want, and need, to enjoy our down time. We all need a break from the stresses and strains of our work. So how can we leave work at work and really unwind when we finish our working day?
Take regular breaks
Taking regular breaks can help you to remain calm and focused throughout the day. It can even help you to get more done, as well as prevent that troublesome racing mind that can plague us in the evenings.
Taking regular breaks can help to keep stress levels at a lower level – and if stress doesn’t build up then we are much less likely to take it home with us.
Breaks need not be long, but they should be often. Simple getting up from your chair and looking out of the window for a couple of minutes can allow your brain to recharge and refresh. Enjoying a cup of your favourite drink, without any other distractions, can also do the trick.
It’s easy to use breaks for mindless activities like scrolling social media but this rarely leaves us feeling refreshed. Try to come up with regular and simple activities to calm your mind throughout the day and the stresses of work will be much less likely to build and so stay with you outside of your working hours.
Resolve the problem
Sometimes our mind can keep ticking over with work tasks because things feel unfinished at the end of the day. Our brains tend to remind us of the things that are still to be done and will ruminate on these issues in an attempt to help us resolve the problem.
By planning how we are going to finish our day, and planning in some rituals to help us, we can set our mind at rest for the evening.
Writing a list of all these unfinished tasks can help keep work at work. It will also make the next morning much easier to manage, providing you with a to do list you can get started on right away.
Having a system that you use regularly and efficiently to keep track of tasks can help to put our minds at ease that our work will get done, but at an appropriate time.
Think about your transitions
It can also help to think about the way in which we transition from work time to relaxing time. Simple rituals can help to ease our minds into a different phase of the day, a time for relaxation and refreshment.
The way in which we transition from work to relaxing time can have a big impact on our ability to relax and leave work stress at work.
A simple transition might be making the effort to walk or cycle home, giving a definite break between your working day and your evening time. This, of course, can be trickier if you work from home. If this is you, then why not try a short mindfulness exercise to transition from work into the rest of your day?
Moments of transition help to signal to our minds that the workday is over and to ease ourselves into a gentler and more relaxing part of our day.
We all get affected by work stress at certain times in our lives. It’s not always easy to leave this behind and keep work at work.
Putting in place some simply strategies can help provide a buffer against work stress seeping out into the rest of our time. After all, we all deserve our time to rest and to lead happy and fulfilling lives both inside and outside of work.
I hope these simple strategies will help you to find that balance you crave and leave work stress, very definitely, at work
