You start firing away on your emails at work. 45 minutes go by. Next you’re looking at your cell phone. Scrolling and attending to texts, social media, aps, etc. You hop on a teams call with your co workers. You get off the call, and your email box is fired back up with emails. Next thing you know 3.5 hours have gone by and you haven’t gotten up once. Approaching lunchtime a bit overwhelmed and wondering to yourself, “where did my morning just go?”
We’ve all been there. We like to dive hard into our work. We like to stay present with the task at hand. Here is one thing that is for certain: I don’t know about you, but I’m in the industrial/manufacturing industry. Business literally NEVER stops. that’s right. lots of our customers are 24/7. People need their stuff. it just never stops.
This can initially put less experienced people in my industry in a very overwhelmed mindset. “how do i catch up?” here is the reality: you never catch up in my industry. that phrase can come off a bit frustrating. but it helps you reflect on what the expectation is for you individually and what will actually make you feel like you’re contributing properly? Further thoughts of anxiety can come from the situation described. Logistics. Inventory. it never ends.
This naturally can make us forget about the self work, breaks, calm, and intentional deep breathing that a healthy fully functioning brain and body needs. But the average person that doesn’t bring awareness to this has the 3PM OH SHEET momment:
Its 3PM on a Monday. haven’t taken one break. Skipped lunch actually. tried to eat a snack while doing emails at the same time. And my shortness of breath is at a all time high, stressed, frustrated.. mentally burnt out. Blood pressure is probably elevated to a unhealthy place. Oh shoot. I have a back up of text messages and other things i haven’t had a chance to get to. AHHHHHH. the boiling point of stress. BOOM. we hit the boiling point. it all caught up to us. we get off work and haven’t transitioned back to calm. we get home to a significant other and we end up getting more frustrated with our partners. “when do i get a break.” we get to a point of mental exhaustion and finally hit the pillow and repeat the cycle all over again tomorrow.
This past paragraph is what we want to avoid at all costs.
Its not that we need to take long breaks through the day.
Its that the 5 minutes to step outside, off the cell phone, and taking a deep breath while simply observing, listening to the birds, taking a walk, and just being present can be all we need to prevent the “meter of stress” from rising. Stress is okay. stress is literally okay. But how do we manage it? Like anything else. too much of things can cause issues. we need stress in our lives. We need pressure and lingering energy. it holds us accountable.
But we can also reframe the way we talk about the word “stress.” Our relationship to stress. what is it telling us? How is stress speaking to us?
taking a walk on your lunch break
Simply going somewhere else besides your work desk and sitting in contentment without needing anything.
looking around you and really observing what is happening around you.
listening to some music.
going and sitting in your car and putting the seat back.
The ROI is gigantic if we can take these breaks seriously. Why do you think we get them at all of our jobs? They’re for a reason. They’re preventing our stress meter from reaching a boiling point.
So we don’t need to find coping mechanisms or say things like “I cannot wait for the weekend”
or “i cannot wait to have a drink later”
Or whatever it happens to be.
People hear the word “self work” and I know it gets thrown around lots today. But the breaks we take through the day are “self work.” they’re necessary US time that gets our mind right, grounds and balances us, and keeps us present so we can attend to life in a quality manner.
All thoughts here. its worked great for me. Hope this helps getting you thinking on the breaks you take through the day.
THE_HUMAN_EXPERIMENT1993 