Do you find yourself bringing stress from your work to your home?
This happens now more than ever since remote working has become the norm. People’s work lives and home lives now bleed into each other, making it difficult to wind down at the end of the day.
It helps to have a personal ritual or practice to wind down every day. It serves you by creating a boundary between your work and your time of rest. It can also be a way to ease yourself into a comfortable sleep. And you’ll ensure that you create a break that lets you bring your creativity and energy to work the next day.
Here are some ideas you can use to wind down at the end of the day.
Create clear boundaries
The most important step that you can take is to draw clear boundaries between your work and personal time.
This could mean rearranging your schedule to finish your work at a specific time. Or you may choose to put your phone on airplane mode or even shut it down.
Without this step, none of the other tips in this post will help you remove stress and relax more. Commit to separating your work time from your personal life and you’ll immediately raise your level of wellness.
Do nothing
This psychological tip sounds easy but is really difficult to do. Try to create a period of time where you simply do nothing at all. This means that you don’t read, browse social media, talk to anyone or even think too hard.
Your goal is to spend half an hour to two hours simply sitting in a relaxed manner. And you let thoughts emerge as they will.
At first, you’ll feel restless and start thinking of things to do and focus on problems in your life. But if you continue to sit still and do nothing, you should eventually feel a sense of peace descend on you as you become aware of your thoughts and feelings.
Once you’ve tried this a few times, you’ll not only feel relaxed but also open an inner pathway for real insights to emerge in your life.
Freewrite
Sometimes you need to actively do something to feel purged of the stress of the day. One powerful method is to use freewriting.
Set aside half an hour with a notebook and a pen (or your desktop computer) and set a timer for 30 minutes. When the timer starts and until it runs out, all you have to do is write anything that comes to mind.
And you don’t edit, correct, or otherwise interrupt the flow of your writing under any circumstance. As you do this time and again, you should find that you feel a sense of ease from unburdening yourself of your thoughts.
The technique of freewriting can be applied in many ways: use it as a stress-buster or to write a blog, or to even work through business problems.
Giving yourself time to freewrite will create mental rewards and even ones that impact your real life in a positive way.
Conclusion
There are many more ways you can wind down at the end of a busy day. Practicing self-care by meditating, painting, or going for a walk are other things you can do.
However you choose to unwind, what’s important is that you separate yourself from work and social media. Boundaries work as long as you enforce them and as a result, it won’t just mean feeling better mentally, you’ll also be able to bring your best to your work and your family, improving your life overall.