How To Find Your Second Wind At Work

It’s the middle of the afternoon and your day is only half over, but your brain feels like it evaporated 20 minutes ago. Suddenly, it feels near impossible to focus on your work. And to make matters worse, you are slowly starting to drift asleep against your will. For whatever reason, you suddenly find yourself crashing fast and you begin to panic! But don’t worry, millions of people find themselves in this situation everyday, and if you are one of them, here are a couple of ideas to help speed up the process of inducing your second wind. These tips can help you rescue yourself from the afternoon crash and burn.

First things first, GET UP! As soon as you feel yourself getting sleepy or mentally drained, get up! Get up and stretch. Or you can take a quick, fast-paced walk around the office to get your heart beating and blood pumping. And it doesn’t have to be far—you can briskly walk to the bathroom or kitchen. And while you’re in there, splash a little water on your face. On colder days—if you have the option, step outside for a few seconds and use that cold air to shock you back to life!

But if getting up wasn’t enough to jump start your second wind, then you might need to take more drastic actions. Eat or drink something with a kick! If you are a caffeine person, drink some coffee or soda. But if you are more of a fruit person, than grab some juice. But if you can only get water, that can still help. Water may not have sugar or caffeine in it, but hydrating the body does increase energy. Also, try eating something with sugar. Fruit has good nutrition value with natural sugars, and is a great afternoon pick-me-up snack. However, if you can’t grab fruit or aren’t a fruit person, candy or simple sugared snacks can also help.

• Warning: careful not to drink too much caffeine or eat too much sugar. Your blood sugar could sky rocket—giving you a sugar rush, which will shortly make your body crash all over again.

Another tactic to try is music. Pick lively music, a song that you are very familiar with and whose lyrics you enjoy. You don’t have to sing out loud (and if you’re are at work, you probably shouldn’t) but quietly sing along to yourself. This will help stimulate the brain and pull you out of your mental fog. You also could try putting on your favorite radio talk show. This also helps pull you back from the brink of sleep by engaging your thoughts. And focus on the shows content, which in-turn can help you re-focus on your own work again.

All these tactics—if done correctly, can help you quickly reach your second wind. By increasing your heart rate and blood sugar, you are awakening your body. By engaging your mind with some music or radio talk, you are awakening your mind. And once your mind and body are reawakened, you have kick-started your second wind! Congratulations, now GET BACK TO WORK!