Hi!
Popping in to say hey, and to nudge you to take three minutes to read this and then get up from your computer and/or put your phone face down and take a lunch break. Give yourself twenty minutes, minimum.
Remember lunch breaks? Like when you used to go to the cafeteria and read a book. Or maybe go out to a restaurant and catch up with a friend about so-and-so’s latest date or new baby or whatever other non-work related thing. Or throw your socks and kicks on over your nylons and power walk with your work wife (I’m aging myself here). Yeah, might look different now, but the concept remains the same: lunch breaks are still important. Maybe more so, since our days are spent mostly in one place and all kind of blur together.
Taking a lunch break is a boundary, which we can all, pretty much always, work on understanding, drawing, and enforcing for ourselves and others.
But from a practical standpoint, think about it: do you ever really get anything done while trying to eat at your desk? Is it actually possible to eat and type at the same time? (Spoiler alert: it’s not.) You split your attention the entire time and end up feeling like you didn’t make the best out of your meal or your task.
So take a damn lunch break.
It’s something I recommend to every single client of mine, and every single person who ever utters the word overwhelm. Just hear me out for, like, two days and try it. See what happens, how you feel, how your day or your productivity or your satisfaction shifts. I know it might feel challenging to think about taking an actual break in the middle of the day, but give it a chance, because that’s just #hustle culture (*cough cough* patriarchy) talking.
If it’s past lunchtime for you, or if you already ate, get up and take a breath or read a few pages of a book or snuggle with your furry friend or jam for a minute. Here’s a playlist that might help get you up.
But then plan your lunch break for tomorrow, OK?
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