Microbreaks for Thriving Teams

— We don't have to know you to know that your employees are often stretched thin and sometimes pressing their limits. Nearly everyone is. — That's why in this episode of HR Morning's 3. 0, we're going to introduce you and your employees to a way to decompress quickly every day. Here's why it's important. As you go through your day, so you may have a moment of stress and think, "Okay, I've moved on beyond that. " You haven't really, your body hasn't. It stays with you and as you have the next stressful moment and the next one, it's like a snowball effect and the science shows that if you disrupt that with a micro break, which is so simple to do, you can literally rewire your brain and your nervous system so that stress doesn't compound, it doesn't live in your body. That's the fix, a micro break. Lee uses them throughout the day and she encourages her employees to do the same. She even starts meetings with micro breaks. Here's what they are. Micro breaks are basically exactly what they sound. So, they're very short, I mean, they can even be less than a minute, anywhere from 30 seconds to usually 2 minutes at most, moments or resets to pause and breathe, usually, and reset your nervous system. And here's how they might be practiced. There are a lot of different ways to practice it. So, the first is as simple as I do this often, in fact, cuz I context switch a lot in my role, as you can imagine, one meeting to the next and different topics in each meeting. So, before you enter the next meeting, 30 seconds of closing your eyes and doing some deep breathing, belly breathing in particular, where you can feel it in your belly. So, they can be as simple as that, just 30 seconds to close your eyes and breathe. There are also some great online micro breaks. You can find them on YouTube, where there's ocean waves or a little bit of a guided mini meditation, as I would describe it. So, a lot of different ways to do it, but it's really just finding those moments to pause. And again, it doesn't have to be very long. So, to put micro breaks into practice in your workplace, set the standard. Be like Lee. She's at the top and she takes and encourages breaks before the stress snowballs. Give the tools. Share tips, like those we showed you here, on how to take micro breaks, or give employees access to apps that help. Monitor it. Don't assume employees are doing this. Check in that they are. Check on stress and productivity levels to ensure they're moving in the right direction. Bottom line, employees don't have to handle stress alone. Several apps can help with meditation and deep breathing, and you can find other episodes of the 3. 0 with stress breaking tips right here.