In many areas of our society today, the line between work and rest often blurs with continued work-related activity. As laptops and smartphones invade our evenings, our workday has found a way to creep into our end of the day when we should be focusing on relaxing, resting and digesting. The goal of each evening should be to end the day’s stress with stress-relieving activities such as walking, deep breathing, physical affection, laughing and even crying if needed. This helps us to “complete the cycle” of the day’s stresses and allows for better sleep and improved focus tomorrow to handle the day.
The holiday season can be especially stressful, with even more travel and things to do than normal. During the next several weeks, put these free, natural and stress-busting tips into action.
What Is the ‘Complete Cycle State’?
The “complete cycle state” is about intentionally bringing closure to your day’s activities, tasks and thoughts. It is both psychologically and physiologically healing, as it helps us engage the parasympathetic nervous system (rest-digest mode), the antithesis of the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight mode). It’s about finishing what you started or, just as importantly, intentionally choosing to pause and mark things as “complete for now.” You can start this process with the sunset if you want to get back to how nature intended, or you can set an alarm in the early evening to trigger the rest-and-digest phase of the day.
Why Is This Important in Today’s World?
In our modern world, the pursuit of hyper-productivity is relentless. With smartphones, remote work and constant digital connectivity, in our minds, the workday never ends. While we are often extremely productive, we are also more stressed than ever before. We find ourselves trapped in a cycle of never-ending tasks, always distracted by the ones that remain incomplete. This feeds stress, anxiety and burnout, robbing us of satisfaction and rest. One of the biggest pieces of advice I give to those seeking to become self-employed or work from home is to be careful. While the commute to work may be awesome, a mere walk to the basement office, the trap of working from home is that you never leave work. Even more disruptive, and keeping the stress loop wide open, is bringing work from the office to home.
Sometimes you must get things done and burn the midnight oil; that is life. But that should be a once-every-now-and-then problem you need to deal with. These types of hyper-productive workdays (and nights), if not dealt with, lead to chronic stress issues, poor health, emotional eating and disrupted sleep cycles. This stress snowball continues to grow until your health forces you to take days or weeks off to deal with completely preventable stress-related illnesses such as heart attack, diabetes, stroke, chronic heartburn and even depression and anxiety.
How to End the Day and Win Tomorrow
Set a daily “finish line.” Decide on a specific time to end your work or main activities. Treat this as non-negotiable whenever possible. Leaving your work at work, whenever possible, by not answering emails or texts (unless an emergency) is a first step.
Focus on what you did today briefly. Take a few minutes to look back on what you accomplished. Acknowledge both completed tasks and ongoing projects. Then list tomorrow’s to-do’s on paper. Write down anything that’s still pending and intentionally move it to tomorrow’s plan. This helps your mind let go for the night. Writing it down helps the brain find a home for it, so it doesn’t keep intruding on your thoughts all night.
Rest and Digest. After an evening meal, focus on digestion by relaxing while walking and deep breathing. Connect with family or neighbors. If you need to get away, take a shower and just sit in the water to relax. A cold shower or bath for two minutes has been shown to reset your nervous system and place you in the post-work state you need to help fight off the day’s stress.
Practice a pre-sleep ritual. Develop a small routine, such as closing your laptop, putting your phone away, writing in a journal or stretching, that signals the end of the day. This can start after dinner, or you can set an alarm for about an hour before you put your head on the pillow. My alarm goes off at 8:30 p.m. and reminds me that, just as my phone needs charging, so do I. Get away from all screens (blue light), darken the room and slowly start the process of getting to bed. If the last thing you do before closing your eyes is put the phone away after hours of mindless scrolling, you’re not completing the cycle nor helping yourself sleep better.
If you can do just a few of these de-stressing rituals, here is what you get in return:
By consciously closing out your day, you signal to your brain that it’s time to rest. Letting go of the day allows your mind to relax, making it easier to fall and stay asleep. This, in turn, makes tomorrow more productive because you return with renewed energy and clearer priorities rather than feeling overwhelmed by yesterday’s stresses that never left you. But most importantly, this process promotes mental and physical health. Regularly entering a complete cycle state can help lower stress levels, improving your overall mood and resilience.
Remember: The old Oliver Goldsmith quote, “Live to fight another day,” truly means completing the cycle.
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