How to unwind after work: 13 tips to relax and de-stress

This means prioritizing sleep, setting aside time for fun, and ensuring you eat throughout the day. Long-term exposure to unmanaged stress can take a toll on your body and mental health, and recent research suggests a potential link between work-related burnout and depression and anxiety. Sometimes, it’s easy to underestimate how much stress affects you. If you start becoming aware of how you feel, you may find yourself emotionally exhausted and pessimistic by the end of some days.

Reduce your caffeine intake

For example, you could meditate when you’re out for a walk, riding the bus to work or waiting at your health care provider’s office. Relaxation in the workplace is one easy way to lower stress levels, reduce absenteeism, and improve productivity. While it may not be possible to always avoid stressful situations, finding solace can certainly ease the mental and emotional strain that may be felt. While sustainable job performance requires us to thrive at work, only 32% of employees across the globe say they’re thriving. Those who feel tense or stressed out during the workday are more than three times as likely to seek employment elsewhere. If this isn’t possible at work, consider doing it in your private life to avoid adding more pressure to your days.

Meditation

It’s also OK — and healthy — to realize you can’t be 100% successful at everything all at once. Be mindful of the things you can control and work on accepting the things that you can’t. If music isn’t one of your interests, turn your attention to another hobby you enjoy. Or try anything that makes you focus on what you’re doing rather than what you think you should be doing.

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• Spending quality time with the people you care for lets you connect, process emotions, and gain new perspectives.
• But nicotine actually places more stress on your body by increasing physical arousal and reducing blood flow and breathing.
• While it may not be possible to always avoid stressful situations, finding solace can certainly ease the mental and emotional strain that may be felt.
• Articles contain trusted third-party sources that are either directly linked to in the text or listed at the bottom to take readers directly to the source.

Professional counselors or therapists can help you find the sources of your stress and learn new coping tools. Try yoga on your own or find a class — you can find classes in many areas. Hatha yoga, especially, is a good stress reliever because of its slower pace and easier movements. Eating a healthy diet is an important part of taking care of yourself. According to the NHS, we should all be drinking 6 to 8 glasses of water per day. Drinking water will also improve your productivity and reduce your chance of developing a headache.

Focus on your breathing

Meditating can provide a moment of solace within a busy work day. Join the Calmer Community to receive our One Mindful Minute newsletters, and get a meditation prompt straight to your inbox each week. Pick up your favourite fiction novel, glossy magazine, or get inspiration from the Calmer Community’s book club. Getting lost in another world can provide a welcome distraction from a stressful situation, and return you to a calmer state.

Although moving around or leaving the place isn’t possible how to destress after work in every work environment, consider ways you can take a mental break. For example, taking a minute to focus on an object nearby and trying to identify as many details of it as possible. Anonymously rate your current or former employer now to unlock our one-of-a-kind resources. After a long, draining day at work, there’s nothing better than finally coming home to unwind.

Taking quick breaks

• Stress relievers can help bring back calm and peace to your busy life.
• Research suggests that getting even just 60 – 90 extra minutes of sleep per night could result in being overall happier and healthier.
• Similar to meditating, try remembering a previously relaxing moment or place.
• I’ll sit down for dinner or a beer with a friend but my head is still spinning around what happened at work.

It can be easy to avoid others when you’re feeling stressed and not in a great mood. But spending time with or talking to your family and friends can help reduce your stress and get you out of your funk. Despite these efforts and the increasing number of employees buying into the importance of wellness, the effort is lost if you don’t actually recover. So, if you feel like you’re burning out, what works when it comes to recovering from stress? Listening to music offers many benefits and can effectively relieve stress before, during, and after work. Playing an uplifting song while you make breakfast can help you start the day off feeling better prepared to interact with the people in your life.

Lifestyle

If you’re open to it, try talking about mental health with a coworker. Sharing how you feel can provide relief, and also create an open culture that enables everyone to express how they feel and improve on it collectively. If you’re finding it hard to cope with stress at work, consider speaking with a mental health professional.