Workplace wellness: boost your spirits and energy throughout the day

Boredom, a heavy lunch and lack of physical activity can contribute to midday energy dips and make you lose all concentration during the afternoon. There are many things you can do to keep your energy going until the end of the workday.

• If you often work on your own, try to organize work involving others at the time of day when your concentration might otherwise be waning.
• We are social animals, and interactions always rev us up.
• But make sure it's an interesting, interactive activity. Sitting in a room listening to someone else drone on and on will just send you snoozing.

• It's a physical activity that gets you up from your desk, bending and pulling and stretching.
• Plus, you can lose yourself in it, and any activity that enables you to get into a "flow" will help to pull you through the doldrums.

• Isometric exercises involve nothing more than tensing a muscle and holding it.
• For instance, with your arm held out, tense your biceps and triceps at the same time and hold for five to 10 seconds.
• You can do this with your calf muscles, thigh muscles (front and back), chest, abdomen, buttocks, shoulders and back.
• If you wanted to, you could work a rotation, or cycle, of isometric exercises involving almost your entire body into your desk job every day.
• The total workout would be quite significant, despite never interrupting your work or causing you to break into a sweat. Plus, you're not only toning your body, you're toning your mind.

• Tedium taxes the mind and induces somnolence (drowsiness or sleepiness). Most studies suggest that concentration on anything wanes after an hour, and is pretty near to pitiful at 90 minutes.
• So divide your tasks to maximize a balance between variety and productivity.
• For instance, if you have a large report you need to get out, work on it for 30 minutes, switch to something else for 30 minutes, then return to it.

• Not only will sharing your space with a live, growing thing provide its own mood boost, but studies find the scent of rosemary to be energizing.
• Whenever you need a boost, just rub a sprig between your fingers to release the fragrance into the air. Or, if you're really wiped out, rub a sprig on your hands, face and neck.