Create Your Daily “Mini-Rituals” for Stress Reduction and Renewal

You can create and use very simple, quick practices to use daily to reduce your stress and improve your well-being in this tenth post in the Combating Burnout Series

The stress and patterns of the workday sometimes lead us into mindless routines.

When feeling stressed and worn down, we sometimes develop ritualized habits, such as mindlessly scrolling through emails, absently surfing the internet and social media, or vegging out in front of the TV at home.  Emails, social media, television—none of these resources are necessarily negative, of course, and indeed they can be helpful tools.

But the problem develops when we use these and other routines as mindless escape activities that further drain and even deaden us.

Photo by Magnet-Me on Unsplash

In contrast, we can instead develop habits to reduce stress, renew our energy, and foster our meaning and well-being.

There are a multitude of actions we can take that are simple, quick, and help to restore our energy or center us on meaningful activity.  If we take these actions on a regular basis, we can mold them into habits that function like “mini-retreats” to help prevent burnout and bolster our energy.

Below are 8 examples of simple actions (drawn in part from prior chapters and other BREATHE skills) that you can practice regularly.  You can even make them your daily or weekly rituals, to improve your work happiness and reduce burnout.

1. Each morning, after parking in the work lot or while your computer boots up, remind yourself of the meaning of your work and then take seven deep breaths.
2. As you start your week, add at least one activity with a designated time slot to your weekly schedule that is consistent with your personal mission for work.
3. If you’re feeling down or tired, take two minutes to do a loving-kindness meditation for yourself.
4. Block out on your schedule a structured but limited time(s) to return emails (rather than constant email scanning and responding).
5. At the end of the day, think about (and jot down) three (or at least one) thing you are grateful for that day about your work.
6. Take a “cigarette break for the soul” (a colleague of mine has rephrased this into the healthier term, “Vitamin D break”) and stand outside, mindfully feeling the sensations (sounds, feel of the air, temperature, etc.) for five minutes before returning to work.
7. Use a simple, positive cognitive reminder, like “Love each day”  as you start your day to set a positive mental approach.
8. Schedule a day off within the next month for your own renewal and enjoyment.

Photo by Eli DeFaria on Unsplash

The above are simple exercises which work for different people.

There is no shortage of possibilities, however.

Using your knowledge of yourself and your work, can you create other routines that can help you to reduce work stress and bolster your well-being?

Experiment with the above list and your own ideas and see what works best for you!

Lead photo by Kelvin Valerio on Pexels