6 Ways To De-Stress During Your Lunch Hour

Daily life can often leave us feeling exhausted and in need of a recharge. Long hours, tight deadlines and increasing demands can turn work into an emotional roller coaster that will inevitably affect performance and job satisfaction. Running the hamster wheel is a short-term gain.

If we don’t invest in ourselves it will come back to bite us in the end, but taking care of yourself doesn’t require a total lifestyle overhaul. Small things can lift your mood and increase your energy.

Belle About Town talked to Isla Knight, founder of JustUWellness, an online and app portal linking stressed consumers to a range of wellness treatments. Here are her top six lunch-hour destress activities, where you can be back at your desk fresh as a daisy before most people have realised you have left!

Eyebrow Threading

Having the eyebrows shaped can awaken the face and the very process of making you look more awake can make you feel more awake too. Traditional methods can leave you with red marks that can take a while to fade. Threading is an ancient Indian hair removal technique that is fast and convenient, leaves no marks, is not at all messy and can temporarily have the same effects as a mini facelift. The method of twisting cotton through the eyebrows can be slightly eye-watering, but it’s bearable pain and it’s so quick, at around ten minutes, there’ll be plenty of time to compose yourself before facing your colleagues.

Dry Neck and Shoulder Massage

Just an eight-minute neck and shoulder massage through your clothes is enough to relieve stress and leave you feeling relaxed. It’s fast and convenient, there’s no need for messy oils that might get into your hair which can be a problem when you need to go back to work. It will leave you invigorated and able to take on the rest of the day.

Cranial Drainage

A centuries old treatment that must be done by a highly trained therapist. It can be experienced one-to-one in the office and is gentle and relaxing. Manipulation is carried out on the stress nodes from the neck to the top of the head, using a light touch to relieve the extra fluids that gather in that area. The technique involves gentle massage (without oils) focussing on pressure points. Taking only around eight-minutes, this treatment reduces stress and helps build energy, helping the body to restore itself.

A Tabata workout

High intensity interval training (HiiT). This is a quick-fire session where you work hard for 20 seconds doing either squats, push-ups, burpees or kettlebells and then rest for 10 seconds. The aim is to get the heart rate up which gets the body moving more oxygen and blood around the body and releasing endorphins which lifts your mood.  

Just eight minutes of Tabata is the equivalent of a thirty-minute workout. While there might be a little bit of sweat worked up on the skin, a small towel is all you need to freshen up and be raring to go back to work.

Fast Yoga

Sometimes also known as Rocket or Power Yoga, Fast Yoga is a derivative of traditional Ashtanga, but it has been modified for the West.

Quick and punchy you can do in ten minutes what would normally take half-an-hour as the rigidity of the classic yoga practice has been broken down and it’s all about stretching and using your hands to reach out and achieve those cobra silhouettes with the concentration on breathing. One breath per pose builds up heat and energises the body. Moving through these rapid transitions with a trainer will push you to do more, faster than you would do on your own, burning more calories per minute, increasing muscle activation and leaving you feeling good.

Cryotherapy

This literally means cold therapy. It’s been popular with athletes for years but has recently found its way into mainstream health and fitness. A major calorie-burner, the technique exposes the body to extremely cold temperatures for a very short burst of time, often less than two minutes. The idea is to shock the system into re-starting itself and it is known to have a variety of health benefits. As well as helping with weight-loss it can reduce migraines and help with chronic pain and mood disorders.

The cold temperature causes physiological and hormonal responses and releases adrenaline, noradrenaline and mood enhancing endorphins which combats anxiety and depression. The effects are quite substantial and you will feel a lot more energetic and invigorated when you leave.

Most of these treatments cost between £10 and £30 and when you consider how much that quick lunchtime blast could energise and improve productivity it should almost be written into the working week.

• Isla Knight is the founder of JustUWellness – a booking service giving access to a wide range of wellness treatments. JustU links users with professional salons and lifestyle providers.