Mental health in the workplace cannot be overlooked. Below you will find 10 exercises you should use everyday to keep your brain and stress levels in check and get more done.
Get a breath of fresh air
Not only does sitting for extended periods of time have a tremendously negative impact on your physical health (and even life expectancy), being cooped up behind a desk or in an office all day seriously affects your mental health, too.
Every so often, get up out of your chair and stretch. Get the blood flowing, disengage your mind, and decompress. As humans, we need natural light in our lives, and a single breath of fresh air can work wonders on your mental state. Step outside, take in the sun rays.
Silence all notifications
n a world constantly filled with dings, vibrations, and pop-ups, it’s unbelievably easy to get distracted. You can be in the zone, getting more work done in a few hours than you have all week. All it takes to ruin that productive streak is a single buzz from your phone.
After that initial break in concentration, it can take 20 minutes or more to regain focus. You may even find it difficult to fall back into that productive state.
Not everyone can go completely off the grid for a few hours while they work – especially those who work a standard nine to five. What happens if someone actually needs to get in touch with me? What if there is an emergency?
Fortunately, technology has come along far enough for such a situation. On iOS, Do Not Disturb has exceptions for contacts in your Favorites and for repeat callers (a second call from the same number in under three minutes). A version of Android (Lollipop) also comes with a similar feature. While silenced, you can allow priority notifications from starred contacts. Enabling these features while working will keep distractions to a minimum while not making you totally unreachable in the case of an emergency.
For Gmail, you may want to consider using Batched Inbox to only receive mail at set times each day.
Clean your workspace
After a few days of hardcore work, my workspace typically gets a little cluttered and messy. I’m okay with a little disorganization on my desk – I work a lot, I’m always working with different tools and building things, and I often drop things on my desk as a reminder to do something or to take care of a matter later. I like to refer to it as controlled disorganization.
Studies have shown that a cluttered workspace can actually spur creativity. Some of the worlds most creative minds are a tad messy and disorgaized. But order and cleanliness have equally helpful effects, such as “healthy choices” and a clearer mind. While I like a few too many things on my desk, when it gets too cluttered or messy, the only way for me to get any work done from it is to clean it off and reorganize. I sort items and put them in the proper place, dust, remove unnecessary items, and straighten. And I usually feel inspired to get to work and check some items off my to-do list afterwards.
Not everyone operates this way, though. Some prefer to keep a dedicated, clean and minimal workspace and a separate workspace for more creative, messy work.
Meditate
Meditation is a practice not used often enough for many of us. I’m guilty of only having meditated a couple times in my life. As helpful as it is, it’s also difficult to stop everything and do absolutely nothing for 10 minutes. For me, it usually results in a nap that lasts way too long.
No less, meditation is a powerful tool. According to a Harvard University study from 2000, meditation can increase the size of the brain regions associated with focused attention, deep thought and memory. According to the study, meditation also helps alleviate anxiety, depression, fear and anger.
Check and organize your to-do list
Much of workplace stress can be attributed to a growing list of to-do items and not enough time to get them all done. While obsessing over a to-do list countless times per day can be detrimental to your productivity, maintaining shop and organizing one or two times per day can help you get a better sense of what’s done, what needs to be done, and the order items need to be completed.
