Wellness For The 9-5
Wellness for the 9-5
By Ashley Nguyen
Reframing Your Relationship to Work
Many of us have corporate jobs or “9-5s” as a means of survival in capitalistic society. Bills need to be paid, health insurance is paramount, and/or there are people who depend on our income for their survival. While we may have to keep these jobs for one reason or another, it doesn’t mean we have to tie our identity alongside it. When we meet someone new, we always get the question “what do you do?” and then we continue to introduce ourselves or define ourselves by our job. While it’s quite normal to make work your life or something you highly identify with, what if we radically think about who we are outside of our work? As humans, we’re meant to be in community, to BE instead of DO, to connect, to love and to serve. This part of our nature conflicts with modern society and the capitalistic world we live in today.
When you take care of yourself while working a 9-5, prioritizing yourself over your objective key results (OKRs), you realize that intentional self-care allows you to show up more fully in all aspects of your life you find meaning in. Whether that is work you find meaning in or a passion project. Living with more balance and inner peace by finding space for stillness is actually productive. Instead of putting in extra hours grinding at a problem or applying brute force towards a goal, slowing down gives you a refreshed perspective for new creative ideas. It may seem counterintuitive in a culture where hard work and hustle are rewarded but when you begin to integrate something as simple as breaks (which I’ll share below), your results are that much more energetically aligned because of your state of being.
Guilt of Always Being “On”
There is this unspoken myth that we have to be constantly “on” for all 8 hours of our 9-5. Most humans aren’t built for that, that's why some countries like Spain realize this and bake in a siesta or after lunch nap. We need variety and breaks. I personally have been guilty of working 6 hours straight and ignoring the signs my body was telling me to rest. There will always be work to do, but there will not always be the present moment YOU are living in. This adage should help you release the guilt of always being on, allowing yourself to take a slower morning when you need to, going for an afternoon workout or signing off a bit early to enjoy nice weather. You can still do your job without burning yourself out.
Reshape your Daily Routine for Peace & Balance
To begin this journey of detaching from your 9-5 and live with more daily peace and balance, I’ll introduce introspective and wellness practices that you can weave into your daily routine to integrate this balance with work. Through these wellness practices, you may find a deeper relationship with yourself to redefine your version of success. We’ll look at the morning, afternoon and evening routine to create space for these daily shifts.
Mindful Mornings
Creating space in your mornings will improve focus and make YOU in control of your day instead of your job or obligations controlling your day. How you start your day sets the tone for it. In Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty he says “when you start your morning with high pressure and high stress, you’re programming your body to operate in that mode all day long”. In order to start off the day with a tone of peace and balance, we have to ease ourselves into the day (as best as possible!).
Give yourself enough time to wake up
Your mind works best when you ease into the day, not jolting into it. Your body needs time to adjust to a waking state. Use a gentle alarm instead of an obnoxious blaring one. Don’t check your phone first thing in the morning and keep it silent throughout the night. Flooding your mind with information and notifications may heighten the stress hormone cortisol first thing in the morning.
Sunshine first thing in the morning
Receiving sunlight and Vitamin D first thing in the morning helps regulate melatonin in our system. Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland that regulates our circadian rhythm. It’s heightened at night when we’re ready to sleep and go to bed and wanes in the morning when we wake up to sunshine. Vitamin D indicates to the body it can start to deplete melatonin (making you less tired). By the end of the day, your body knows that there is less sunlight/vitamin D in the environment so it starts to produce melatonin again to make you sleepy.
Light Movement
Yoga, a full workout or a walk to start the day naturally energizes you through dopamine release, which can help decrease your reliance on caffeine to wake up.
Gratitude and Intention Setting
Journaling about even just 3 things you are grateful to wake up to creates such a happier atmosphere to your body and your day. Take time to set an intention around:
What do I want to get out of your day?
How can I make the most of this day?
Is there a feeling or goal I’d like to meet by the end of the day?
Moving through your day with intention and gratitude that you can constantly return to when things get difficult, creates a sense of purpose and inner fulfillment.
Meditation and breathwork
Taking time to meditate on gratitude and your intention above is a beautiful way to start the day. Although some people struggle to meditate in the morning and that’s okay. Find a time to meditate during that day that works for you. If you’re crunched for time, a quick breathwork practice that energizes you and takes you into the body is Kapalabhati or Skull Shining Breath. It takes 2 minutes and all you have to do is take short quick exhales out the nose while sucking the abdomen in. Notice how your body and mind feel after this quick release. Disclaimer: do not do Kapalabhati on a full stomach, if you are pregnant, prone to panic attacks or have breathing difficulties.
Integrate a few of these practices to your morning routines and then stick to what works and feels good to you! Staying consistent with these routines on the weekends is highly beneficial.
Mid-day Self Care
Remember humans aren’t meant to mentally grind continuously. Taking a break IS productive.
Timer for Overworking
If you tend to overwork or grind on a single task, set a timer for 75-90 minutes. When that timer goes off, stretch, take a walk, drink water or do breathwork. Productivity experts recommend this time block because the human brain is most productive & focused between 75-90 min and anything beyond may suffer in quality due to declining focus. Breaks are GOOD!
Vagus Nerve exercises for stress relief
Stress is bound to occur in the middle of the day especially if you have a demanding job. Vagus Nerve exercises stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest. These two exercises are quick and help you come down from the stress response of fight or flight:
Cross Arm Stomps: Stand tall with your feet hips width apart. Cross are arms over your chest making an X. Inhale and lift the heels, coming on your tippy toes. Exhale, drop (or emphatically slam) your heels on the ground, feeling the pressure release. Repeat this as many times as you need or as your body will tolerate.
Cranial Release: Bring your thumbs to the inner corners of your eyebrows and begin to lean your skull into your thumbs. Use the rest of your fingers to gently press on your forehead and eyebrows and squeeze the fingers in together, like you are squeezing in the skin of your forehead.
Block off your calendar
If you have lots of meetings every day, begin to block off 1-2 hours midday to reset. Honor this boundary you have with work so you can be a human again. Get some fresh air during this time, have a mindful lunch or enjoy time away from your desk. You can even squeeze in some chair yoga at this time, stretching your arms long and placing your palms on your desk and doing some cat/cows.
Breathwork for focus and balance
When you do need to find some balance again in the middle of the day or need to cultivate more focus, this form of yogic breath Nadi Shodhana or Alternate Nostril Breathing is a simple yet powerful technique.
Bring your pointer and middle finger to the space between the eyebrows. Use your thumb to close your right nostril, inhale through your left nostril. Close the left nostril with the ring finger then exhale through the right nostril. Continue to alternate the nostril that breathes in and the nostril that breathes out. You can do this for 3-5 min or until you find your mind has settled.
Post-work transition to evening
This often is the toughest boundary to draw. Whatever is at work can stay at work. Create a “spacing” ritual to transition from your job to your real life so you can come back to the frequency of YOU. Dissociating from the role you play at work back into who you are as a special, unique individual.
Physical Space
Because our jobs are so mentally draining, creating physical space between work and your real life looks like getting out of the head and into the body. Body awareness centers and grounds you. Some suggestions for this are going for a walk, doing yoga, going to the gym, any kind of movement or stretching. I even recommend Qigong which is not very physically demanding but it clears the energy of work from within the body so you can cleanse the day before you.
Mental Space
Creating mental space helps you decompress after looking at a screen all day or having to be so externally present for others. Doing a quick meditation or breathwork takes your mind off work and focusing on the present moment. A breathwork technique to also activate the vagus nerve is the triangle breath:
With your right hand, find a pranayama mudra or hand seal that involves bringing your pointer and middle finger towards your palm with your thumb, ring and pinky finger free (similar to a shaka)
Inhale through the nose for 3
Hold the breath for 3 by using your thumb and ring finger, close the nostrils and tuck the chin into the chest. Inviting a chin lock or jalandhara bandha.
Release the hands, lift the head and exhale for 3
Repeat for 4-5 cycles.
Even just shaking it out by jumping or dancing helps clear the mind from the energy of work.
Spiritual Space
Tend to your spirit by performing ritual acts of self love. This could look like creative pursuits, releasing emotions in the body through somatic movement, reading, soothing crafts, journaling, destimulation by decreasing screen time or anything that brings you joy. Daily joy makes life fun, worth living and invites a sense of optimism and abundance!
Tying it all together: Why Have Healthy Routines?
Happiness through balance, space and presence.
Cultivate higher awareness of the Self
By having this self-awareness, learn to work with your energy rather than your mind.
Radically live by who you truly are, not defined by your job. Taking care of yourself allows you to show up more fully, in all aspects you find meaning in.
About the Author
Ashley Nguyen is an RYT-200 Yoga and Meditation Teacher specializing in Yin, Restorative Yoga and Yoga Nidra. She also currently works full time as a software engineer in the tech industry. With a passion for wellness and self-discovery she hopes to share the light of transformation to others, especially the BIPOC and immigrant community. She creates accessible meditations on her podcast Awake In Wellness and on Insight Timer. As a lover of self discovery through self love, she also offers birth chart readings that include astrology, human design and numerology. You can find her on Instagram @awake.in.wellness. Check her website for local yoga & self discovery events in Denver and ways to work with her privately through yoga, meditation or yoga nidra www.awake-in-wellness.com