Showing posts with label stress at work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stress at work. Show all posts

Friday, February 23, 2018

Bust stress at work with meditation

Recently I was suffering from allergic cold and my doctor prescribed anti-allergic tablets. After taking it at night, it practically turned me into a zombie the next day. This continued and I knew this wasn’t working (those of you who know me must be thinking that this is my own venture and I could just put my head down or my legs up and catch a snooze).

Now I’ve been a fan of meditation ever since my sister introduced me to Yoga Nidra. It really helped me to sleep at night. Meditation came to my rescue again here. I tried a 5 minute meditation video and it really worked. I felt refreshed and calm and ready to start work. That’s when I had a realisation. We don’t ‘start’ work when we physically reach work, it starts in our minds a long time before. If you are like me, you must be starting this around 4 a.m. in the morning. Often my sleep breaks and then I drift into a semi sleep, semi office ninja mode. This continues till it is time to roll out of bed and the morning routine starts. I still find myself thinking about work all through-out - my work-out, loo time (of course right?) and dropping the kids off to school.

When I finally reach work, I’m in a bit of a frenzy. Where to start, whom to call, what tasks to prioritise? I discovered this was the perfect moment to meditate. Now I’ve been doing it every day just for a few minutes. It really helps me to calm down and more importantly, center myself. It reminds me that if I’m able to take out time for meditation, I can do my tasks also in an appropriate time.

I use different videos from YouTube, I just make sure they are less than 5 minutes long. I tried Headspace too. A good tip they give is to try and make a habit out of it (like brushing teeth). This again made sense to me because I figured morning time was good when there are less people and less action. On days you are really tired, you could do a longer video (20 minutes or so). That would be better than fighting sleep during a meeting or a presentation.



So try this and remember the key elements –finding a suitable time, keeping it short, using a video which involves deep breathing and centres oneself. Bust that stress and be productive and happy at work. Cheers.