Let’s face it, running a business is a lot of stress. If you feel like you’re in constant competition with other companies, the pressure is going to get to you at some point. This means that your downtime is crucial. After you spend a long day at the desk, you need that downtime, so you forget about your day at work. But sometimes we feel that temptation to get ahead of the game. So what can we do to unwind after a long day at the desk, but still do things that do prepare us for the next day?
Playing Video Games
Video games are a great way to unwind and are even good for your cognitive development. Whether it’s an online game like Jacks or Better, or a few rounds of Call Of Duty, playing games gives you that opportunity to distract yourself from everything around you, and truly engross yourself in a game which is the perfect way to avoid that feeling of stress that encompasses the best of us. Playing a game, especially if you don’t go for meditation, is a great way to unwind, but also gets your brain going. This is something that’s greatly underestimated; we don’t Always need to switch our minds off completely after a stressful day.
Meditating Or Deep Breathing
Some people don’t like the idea of sitting down, cross-legged trying to think of nothing, but if listening to the silence can help you to unwind, that is great. For those people that can’t switch their brains off, deep breathing is a perfect alternative. Doing a ritualized deep breathing, like box breathing, can help to slow your heart rate down, and encourage you to focus on the here and now. When we feel stressed and worried, we lack clarity. Something like box breathing helps to achieve this. And even if you think it is like a hippie practice, even Navy SEALS do it, as it’s part of their training.
Starting Your Day The Night Before
If you feel that you’re flying by the seat of your pants during the office hours, getting a head start the night before can make things a little easier. But the fact of the matter is, there will be other problems that replace the ones that you firefight daily. So it’s not necessarily about getting your work done the night before, but about finding different things that you can do to ensure that your mind is calm the night before, giving you a better chance of remaining calm during the following day. Something like cleaning the house is, although a pretty mundane task, has numerous benefits on our frame of mind. And besides, even if you get a handheld vacuum cleaner, and do a little bit of cleaning, this will ensure you leave a clean house in the morning. If cleaning isn’t your thing, tending to a garden is, much like video games, a nice distraction. But with something like gardening, it has a lot of benefits for mental health. If you find the stress is too much during the working day, you’ve got to find ways to unwind, but do it in the right way, not just so you switch your brain off completely, but you prepare yourself for the next day as well.
