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Many workers are staying long hours at work without taking breaks, which can have negative effects on their health. It is important to prioritize work breaks and engage in activities that rejuvenate and energize. Afternoon slumps can be avoided with power naps and engaging in exciting activities. Time management is crucial for work-life balance, and creating a to-do list can help stay focused. Burnout is a serious issue with physical and psychological indicators, and seeking support is important to manage it. We are now going to look at work stretch. This is something that has an idea of individuals staying long hours at work. And they are actually workers that can actually sit at a particular spot for as long as 9 to 10 hours at a stretch during a work day. This is known to have certain effects on both the health and other things. Now the question is how important is it to have breaks when an individual is working or should sitting down at a stretch be encouraged or be overlooked? I think we all know the answer to that question. We've all had instances where we've had to sit for a long time and of course you're going to get irritable. Even if you're really focused and sometimes you don't know that time has passed, somehow your body will start sending you signals that it is tired. Maybe you start having tension headaches, you start having neck pain, back pain and when you ignore all of that it can lead to serious problems. So breaks during work should be prioritized. Every healthy work environment should have work breaks. A typical Tangerine system is usually on power a day. And of course there are little work breaks in between but that is like the official work break. And so whenever you have your work break, please no matter how overwhelming the task you have to do is, at least get up from your seat. Just hold even if it's from one corner of the office to another corner, stretch your legs, go for a bathroom break. If you're feeling overwhelmed you can even splash cold water on your face. Try to get something to eat and try not to eat on your work day. If possible, if you have a cafeteria or another area of your office so you're able to enjoy that meal because sometimes there's that temptation where you're eating and sometimes you go back to work and you're just eating mindlessly. So try as much as you can to take your food or your snacks elsewhere. Then maybe go with your colleagues during your work break. Don't be a loner. Try your best to just say hi to one or two persons. That's when you feel rejuvenated. When you come back, you have a renewed sense of energy and purpose to continue your day. Let's look at afternoon slump. We'll talk about afternoon slump. We're of course looking at a period when people feel really tired and have trouble focusing on work. And this has been termed to happen between 1 and 3 p.m. during the work day. So how can an individual avoid afternoon slumps? Power naps. When you start feeling the need to sleep, you can just take those 10 minutes short power naps you take in the office. It should be encouraged. I heard that there are parts of the world where there are even beds. They can turn their work chairs into beds to take a power nap. In some part of the world, it is discouraged and maybe you're not using productive use of your time but you can even incorporate it into your work break. Maybe after you are able to use maybe 40 minutes, then the other 20, you can decide to take a nap. You come out, you clean. It helps you to feel rejuvenated. Then try as much as you can to also put exciting activities for the afternoon. Don't just do all the high energy activities in the morning like when you're prioritizing your tasks for the day. Then you leave very low energy tasks that you don't like for the afternoon. Try to do something shift tasks that actually makes you feel interested or makes you feel very creative. You can push those tasks to the afternoon and please, like I said during the break, try to get something to eat because a lot of times, especially when your work has to do with a lot of mental work, that mental fatigue is there. You are hungry and sometimes you don't even know that you're hungry. So try to get something to eat. Make sure you take power naps. Then put creative activities for the afternoon that can make you really excited. That way, you look forward to your afternoon and you're able to have a great one. It's amazing, power naps. With the avoidance of afternoons, productivity actually increases. So when the productivity increases, how can we sustain this productivity increase in the workplace? On an organizational level, maybe you can ensure that there are policies in place because whenever a practice is a good one, every good organization will try to turn that practice into a policy. You can actually put policies in place that tries to ensure that high-powered or creative activities are kept or placed in the afternoons. I remember in my workplace, there's this thing we used to do. We used to have board games. We used to have games in the office in the afternoon because this afternoon slot is very real. People are exhausted. People are tired. So during our break, even though we did not quite sustain it, but it was a good idea, we bought Yudo games, Sudoku, Scrabble. And you see everyone's so excited. After playing that game, it boosts creativity. It helps you to engage with other members of the team. Collaboration is there. And that became like a policy, even though it was not really sustained in my place of work. But it's something that I would encourage every organization to look out for. You can try to incorporate afternoon board games. You don't have to use that. You don't have to go outside. That way, you can sustain what you have already started. And also try not to put very long meetings because you know that as the day progresses, our attention span, it looks like because of the sun and everywhere is hot, it reduces. So ensure that activities in the afternoon are short, kept as timely as possible. Because when you fix meetings or long chats in the afternoons, people get tired and attention is reduced to that level. In addition, these are practices that you can put up as an increase in productivity sustain. That's great. We're shifting to time management. Of course, when you talk about time management, you can't separate it from productivity and it cannot be overemphasized. So how can we connect time management and work-life balance? Time management is a universal concept, actually. And if you're able to manage your time, definitely it will help you to have a better work-life balance. Because work-life balance is all about managing your time between work and your personal life. You try to create a balance where you prioritize things that, okay, I'm at work, you focus on work. When you get home, you're able to manage your time in such a way that you focus on family. Because the reason why a lot of us have very poor work-life balance is that at work, you're on your phone. You're not doing what you're supposed to do when you're in the workplace. So at the end of the day, when you get back home, you have spillover attacks, you're working all through the night, you're not able to spend time with your family. Now you're working when you're actually supposed to be with your family or with friends or alone and enjoy your me time. So learning to manage your time would help you to have a great work-life balance. And one good strategy to put into place is having a to-do list when you come to work. That can not be over-exercised. You cannot be productive if you don't have a list. Get stick notes. Just place them once you come to work, put them on you where you can see them and you assign time, like deadlines to them. So by 2 p.m., I should have done A, B, and C. Today, I have five tasks for you at work. So it helps you to stay focused on that task. So when you get home, focus on home and try not to respond to what emails are at home and make it a culture so even your employees actually know that, oh, Mrs. A, B, and C is at home and if it's not an emergency, she's not going to respond. So these are just little ways to actually ensure that you're able to better manage your time and have a healthy work-life balance because work-life balance is very important. That's great. Create a to-do list that's extremely important for time management. Now onto the issue of burnout. It has actually raised a lot of concerns in the workspace and it's an issue that pops out every time. So what are the identifiers or indicators of burnout and then how can it be managed or what can be done about it? When we talk about burnout, there are actually lots of indicators across various parameters. When you look at the physical indicators of burnout, maybe at that time you start having shoulder pain. You start feeling headaches all the time when you're like, oh, it's just normal. I just need a glass of water. You continue to feel this constantly. It's your body's way of telling you that it is overwhelmed. You start having shoulder pains. For some persons, they even start having digestive issues. Then on the psychological side of it, you start experiencing maybe mental fatigue, loss of concentration, reduced attention span. You're making mistakes that ordinarily you wouldn't make. It's your body's way of telling you that it is overwhelmed and sometimes it can even extend to your relationship at work and even at home, where you begin to get agitated. You see yourself, very easy things your colleagues at work will do that on a good day will not trigger you. You're easily triggered. You go into a bubble, it's the same thing. Your relationship at work begins to suffer. All these are indicators that you need to slow down. You need to go back to the drawing board and actually figure out a different approach to take. When this even gets worse, it's important to seek support. If you've tried managing stress, you've tried it has progressed to burnout and it's not helping, you can talk to your supervisors. Maybe the task you're on, they can reassign you to another task or assign someone to join you on that particular task or change the timing schedule. If that is not working and it becomes maybe a mental health concern, that's where you get to talk to us. You reach out to a mental health counselor or a psychiatrist because these are shrouded in secrecy in our society today. Just the same way you can feel stressed and go to the doctor, you can also feel stressed or have extreme signs of burnout and also seek mental health care. It's really important to be aware that these options are available and accessible. That's great. Seek mental health care when it is getting out of hand. Now let's talk about setting boundaries. How can one set boundaries and prioritize self-care on a very busy workday? You know that we live in a very capitalist society where a lot of times for most organizations, they just want to and so as a person, maybe because it's not that enriching and they're scared, okay if I try to establish these boundaries, I may lose my job. If I try to say no, I may lose my job. There's that fear for a lot of persons that are actually losing their job. Say yes to things, even on their own personnel, on weekends, after work hours, when you're actually working in an emergency situation, you actually say yes due to that fear of losing your job. But at the end of the day, sometimes it can boil down to either your job or your health. Something is going to soften if you're feeling overwhelmed. So establishing boundaries is a practice that we need to inculcate and it starts with saying no. It starts with learning to say no, even in the workplace. You can say, all right now, I don't think I can handle this task for today. Maybe we can revisit it tomorrow. You don't have to be rude about it, but it's very important that you express, especially when you know that you're feeling overwhelmed. So be your best. Be the best you can be in whatever field. Know the value you're bringing to the team because if you're not a very productive staff and you keep saying no, then that may be a door out or a walk out for you someday. So try to be the best that you can. Prioritize saying no. Establish boundaries in your office. This even transcends to personal business because a lot of times people only enforce boundaries when you're working for others. But when it's your personal business, you can go on and on. You work till 12 midnight because it's your business. So you have to also learn to say no to yourself and have an accountability partner. Have someone that helps to put you in check, especially when it's your personal business. That way you don't carry on and work on and on because if you do that, you might not even feel the telltale signs. Your body is telling you that it's overwhelmed. Over time, your body might not see anything. One day you just notice that you break down and believe you me, the work is going to continue. So it's very important that you learn to say no. You have an accountability partner and you reach out for support. Seek support. If you're trying to do something over time and you have done it with your full self-will, you've educated yourself and it's still working out, then it's time to seek support. It can be expand your social support network. It can be what you need. Just always have that option available and there's no shame in that. It will further help you to establish healthy boundaries. All right. Thank you, Christiana. We should learn how to say no and seek accountability partners. Now, as we're winding down on today's episode, we'd like to have your final thoughts on having a successful workday. What are your final thoughts, Christiana? It's been a very interesting conversation, navigating a successful workday, and I believe I'm not just speaking to people, I'm also talking to myself. These principles may look really big. Okay, how do I implement all these? A lot has been said, but out of everything that has been said, you can just pick one or two principles that you can incorporate into your day practice and start small. You don't have to do everything at the same time. Just write them down. Start small. Sometimes you might make progress today and tomorrow you regress. It's okay. It's all part of the journey. The only important thing there is that you're consistent, that you don't give up because you should prioritize having a successful workday. We spend so much of our time at work. If you check the average adult work life, you spend so much of your hours working. So, it's important that you have a good workday. It's important that you have a revolutionized, inspiring workday. It will add years to your life. It will make you healthier. It will make you happier. So, it's important that this topic, you look into it as a person, as an organization, if you are an employer listening. It's important that you incorporate these practices so that your employees would be happy to be in your workspace. And as an employer, as an employee, you can have a health well-being. So, I hope this topic has really struck one or two chords and that you'll be putting the principles we've discussed to practice. All right. Thank you so much, Christiana. It's actually a great pleasure having you on today's episode. Thank you for all the tricks that you shared with us on getting through a workday. Of course, being an insightful and expository look at today's topic. And that is all we have for today. For questions, inquiries, consultations, and more resources, you can like, follow, and reach out to us on Facebook at Office Relations or via email, use officerelations01 at gmail.com. You can also follow Precious Mental Care Services on Facebook for your psychotherapeutic-related concerns. See you on the next episode. Cheers. Free audio post-production by allphonic.com