How to relax in the office? 12 practical tips

Some tips and recommendations on how to relax in the office and combat stress.

Feeling stress in the workplace is the daily routine of almost all workers. This may seem obvious and unavoidable, since who wouldn't feel stressed at work? Work is something we are forced to do, we don't do it for the fun of it.

While there are jobs and jobs, all jobs in the office are very stressful. It is true that it is normal to be seated and there are no dangerous activities, but the pressure of having to meet deadlines can be very stressful, especially if we are predisposed to neuroticism.

One thing that should be clear to us is that to be a good worker and perform our function well we have to be relaxed. Stress is the enemy of productivity and mental health, that's why today we are going to see some ways to learn how to relax in the office..

Tips on how to relax in the office

No person is immune to stress, and the workplace is the place where you are most likely to get stressed. Many people have internalized the idea that this is normal since working is not, at least most of the time, a pleasurable activity. This is especially true if we work in an office. Being locked in a claustrophobic cubicle sitting in a chair that makes us cramped in front of the computer is not usually our ideal of pleasure.

Fortunately, there are there are many things we can do in the office to loosen up, all of which can easily be done in the office.all of which can easily be done at the workplace. Learning how to relax in the office is fundamental for your mental and physical health as well as for your productivity since, whatever they say, human beings do not work very well under too much pressure.

People who live their work in a particularly stressful way sooner or later make mistakes that harm both him and the rest of his colleagues and bosses, and this is something that no one wants. Below we will see some techniques and tips that we can apply in our office, very easy to do and that can help us to be more productive.

1. Breathing exercises

The first thing we have to do to keep our stress at bay is to learn to control our breathing. Deep breathing is a classic in any manual to learn to relax, and it is perfectly applicable to the workplace. All we have to do is close our eyes and Breathe as deeply as possible, making sure that the air gradually fills our abdomen.. We keep it for a few seconds in our lungs and, little by little, we exhale it very slowly, always through the nose.

We can repeat this exercise a few times, always doing it calmly and slowly to avoid hyperventilating. A good guideline is to follow the 4-7-8 rule: inhale air through the nose for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 7 seconds and exhale very slowly for 8 seconds.

2. Good posture

We cannot be relaxed if we are in an uncomfortable posture.. This is especially important if we spend many hours a day sitting in front of a computer, as we can get stuck in a very unnatural posture, with a curved back and putting too much pressure on the neck. We must make sure that our chair is ergonomic and is set at a height that suits us to work.

It is essential that we take advantage of the shape of the chair, resting our back on the backrest and keeping it straight. As far as possible, we should support the cervical vertebrae. In this way we will save us all kinds of physical discomfort such as contractures, headaches or dizziness, and as we will not be in tension we will not fall into stress at our workplace.

3. Stretch your arms

Stretching your arms is a technique especially recommended for all those who tend to spend many hours withdrawn.. Many people ignore the importance of stretching their arms, which often causes them to feel pain in their shoulders and wrists.

To stretch the arms we do not need a lot of space or any special material, we can even do it sitting down. We simply have to bring our arms forward, parallel to the floor and with the palms out. The fingers first point to the ceiling and then to the floor. We will make rotations with the wrists to relax the area a little more.

4. Turning the head

One of the parts that suffer the most when we work in offices is the neck. To be able to relax it we can move the head in all directions, always making soft and slow movements, never abruptly. First we move it up and down several times, then right and left, and then with 360º turns to the sides. The important thing is that we notice how we are loosening the cervical "dusting" after hours of being in the same position..

Another option we have is to place the palm of the right hand on the left ear and, gently, exert a little pressure towards the right hand, stretching the back of the neck to one side. Then we will do it with the opposite side, and in each batch we will be between 30 seconds and one minute in this position.

5. Teleporting to a colorful world

Staring at a white computer screen all day with the word processor open is tedious, boring and monochromatic. Pleasant colors rarely abound in this type of context and there comes a time when we start to see the world in black and white. To break a little with this monotony and get alienate us happily we can move from a vision in white with black letters to a multicolored one seeing for a few minutes a nice and colorful landscape.

To do this we can use the technique of visualization, which simply consists of closing our eyes and imagining a pleasant landscape, the one that brings us the most inner peace.. If we are not very good at imagining things, what we can do is look for a nice picture on the Internet, such as a field of colorful Dutch tulips, the blue waters of the Caribbean or a traditional Japanese landscape. Let's imagine that we have teleported there and can hear, smell and feel what we are seeing.

6. Relaxing the eyes

To relax your eyes, it is very important to take them away from the screen, especially after spending several hours staring at the monitor. Eyes that are constantly active are more prone to dry out and develop pathologies such as infections. This is why it is so important that, even if it takes less than 5 minutes, we take our eyes away from the monitor and move them a little.

A good exercise consists of close the eyelids, drawing with the eyes the infinity sign (∞) about ten times.. We can also do it with our eyes open, although we are more likely to get dizzy if we go too fast. This exercise is not a very difficult thing to do and we don't need any materials at all, making it a perfect exercise.

7. Listening to music

If we are one of those who don't lose focus when we listen to music, we can try to listen to it while we are doing our tasks. As long as our boss doesn't mind if we wear headphones, we can listen to our favorite music genre, which will make our work more stressful. will make our work go from being stressful to more fun and enjoyable, making the workday fly by..

8. Looking out the window

Maybe our office has a window with an interesting landscape, whatever it is. It may not be much, but this is much better than the claustrophobic cubicle we are stuck in. We can look through it, having a good time gossiping about what people are doing in the street, the weather, the shape of the clouds, if there are any details in the buildings in front of us that we hadn't noticed?

Everything that a simple perspective of something as mundane as the street where our office is located can offer us is so immense that we will never cease to be surprised.. It can even give us an idea or two, making our work more creative and enjoyable.

9. Walk

Many people, especially on work days, do not achieve the WHO recommended the WHO-recommended goal of 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day.. Many will think that these are a lot of steps but, in reality, it does not take more than an hour to do them and they can even be achieved in the workplace, whether walking through the corridors or climbing stairs. When we talk about walking to relax in the office we are not talking about doing it while talking on the phone or checking your cell phone, but just walking.

On our walks around work we can visit a colleague who is not too busy, take a closer look at the building we work in or go for a healthy snack, a glass of water or a Herbal tea. If tea or coffee relaxes us, we can also drink them, but we must bear in mind that these drinks contain methylxanthines, substances that can over-stimulate us and cause stress.

10. To exercise the legs

We can stand up and briefly exercise our legs.. This is necessary because the legs end up getting tired of spending so many hours sitting and not moving, especially if we are in a job where it is difficult to walk around the company or its surroundings. When we stand up we can raise one knee until it forms an angle of 90º with respect to the trunk and we keep that way for a few seconds. If we do not have balance problems we can stay like this for 30 seconds or a minute. Then we repeat the exercise but with the other leg.

11. Meditate

Meditation is also one of the most recommended techniques to relax. However, there is a problem: an office is not a yoga room. The space is smaller and there are more distractions, which makes it very difficult to meditate like a Buddhist monk from Tibet. Fortunately, you don't have to meet absolutely all the requirements to meditate, as long as you manage to relax a little bit in the office. For example, we can stop looking at the screen for about 5 minutes, play music on our cell phone or computer and close our eyes..

12. Take breaks

The good worker is not the one who does not stop for a moment, but the one who knows how to manage his time and rests regularly. Often, something as simple as taking 5 minutes every hour as a short break helps us to keep our energy levels up..... Moreover, since it is difficult for us to stay focused and attentive for more than 50 minutes, we cannot expect to do our work well if we spend 3 hours straight without a break doing whatever we are doing. We must recharge.