Having a tough day at the office?  If workplace dramas are getting you down, stewing in your seat all lunch break can transform molehills into Himalayan peaks.   It’s our thoughts that create our feelings and even a momentary distraction can help us break out of negative emotional states and see things differently.  My tried-and-tested mood boosters below take only a few minutes but are insanely effective in breaking out of the spiral of negative thinking.

Glen Wright Mugshot

Climb to the top
If you’re feeling highly stressed a quick ten-minute burst of activity is all you need to regain your calm.  Climbing the stairs to the top of your building may seem like an act of masochistic torture but is a fantastic way to focus your attention while combatting sky-high stress levels. Arriving at the top in a state of elation, the endorphin rush will leave you feeling calmer and more in control of whatever the afternoon throws at you. One of the best mood boosters around.

Give away your salary
Random acts of kindness are proven to put us in a more positive frame of mind and can be as simple as giving a colleague a compliment.  A more challenging but rewarding twist is to give away your hard-earned salary.  For this exercise, write a goodwill message on a post-it note along with a five pound note and leave it in a random spot for someone to find.  The child-like buzz you get from selecting where to leave it, safe in the knowledge you’re about to make someone’s day, more than makes up for the financial loss. If you believe that what goes around comes around, please remember where you picked up this little gem after your Lottery win.

Dean Hochman post-it notes

Get a new perspective
In these selfie-obsessed days, everyone’s a photographer but how much of life do you really capture through your photos?  Taking ten minutes in your lunch break to photograph the world outside your office will not only distract you from work problems but will also let you see things afresh. Spending most of our days on auto-pilot, it’s amazing how much of life passes us by from the buds on the trees to the amazing mix of people all around us.  This new awareness of the wider world will help to return you to the office refreshed and more responsive to new ways of tackling problems.

Achieve inner calm
if the thought of a half hour lunch break meditation class has you frantically fidgeting, the same calming benefits can be experienced in just one minute.  Developed by the World Spiritual University, the one minute guided meditation is designed to focus on your breathing to distract you from your mental turmoil. Even just a minute is enough time to distance yourself from negative thoughts and return you to awareness in a more neutral frame of mind.  If you find you get distracted, just keep returning your focus to your breathing and you’ll be amazed by how much calmer you feel.  This distraction technique has saved my sanity on many occasions.

Smell the coffee
It’s a little known fact that our sense of smell is one of our strongest defences against stress-related anxiety. As we learn to associate certain smells with states of mind, we can momentarily trick the brain into returning to a calmer state.  Inhale the same aromatherapy oil that you use when relaxing in the bath and your mind will be transported back to those same feelings of calm relaxation.  if you’re feeling low, a ten-minute browse round a perfume counter is all you need to stimulate the brain with positive associations of freedom and spontaneous fun.  Spritz away!

What mood boosters do you use when you’re having a tough day at the office?