cups and breaks

Tags

breaks, cappucino, cups, herbal, photography, photos, tea

Sometimes I think my life is measured by cups – a large cup of tea in the morning, another (smaller) cup once I arrive in the office, maybe a third if the morning is tough, then I switch over to herbal, or if the kitchen only has lemon flavored green tea I’ll have that, as the afternoon creeps on I may allow myself a cup of cappuccino, a small pick-me-up to keep me going, and then of course those cups of tea at home in the evening – since I am trying to be good only herbal or fruit (or is I can source it liquorice, mmh), then of course there is the thermos of hot fruit tea I carry around with me in my portable office – my trusty satchel bag – the lid is the cup and I sip from while in college (both as a MfA student and as a lecturer).

So many cups punctuate my day, so many tiny breaks to just take a breath before I move on. Those moments of –pause – that it takes to lift, sip and swallow (sometimes with a brief closing of eyes) are vital to me, not only for reasons of hydration.

Maybe measuring my day, life, in cups isn’t so strange after all – the beverage of choice often reflexes my mood or my need and the breaks they give me help me navigate though my day.

afternoon break – a well deserved cup of cappuccino to keep me going

time for tea

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afternoon tea, breaks, Henry James, little break, photo, photograpy, quotes, tea, tea time

When I look to my right I see my to-do-list, a stack of paperwork that needs my attention and my notebook filled with pencil scribbles. When I look to mt right I see my tiny backyard that needs my attention, my plants need a little tending too, my bike a bit more air and it needs a bit of tiding up.  But when I look in front of me all I see are letters, words, a screen filled with blank pages and endless possibility, yet I feel a little stuck.

Now we all have our little rituals and habits that we turn towards in these kind of situations. Some get up and go for a walk, others switch on the TV of half an hour or pick up a newspaper or magazine and browse for a while, a third group may opt for a chat with colleagues or on the phone. But for me the perfect thing to do when I  need  a little break is to make a cup of tea.

Just waiting for the kettle to boil and then watching the steam billow up out of my mug while I pour the hot-water onto the teabag, pouring milk into the brew and watch the little clouds of lactose rise to the top, colouring my tea the perfect shade of brown, settles me and helps me gather my thoughts.

So as my mug is empty and I need a little “pick-me-up” I think I’ll step away from my desk for a little while and try and find inspiration in my beverage of choice, create a little time for tea and me.

There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. – Henry James

taking a break

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brain, brain functions, breaks, health, life stress, mental health issues, mental-health, miscellaneous, random, stress, stress research, well-being, work stress

It’s only been six weeks since the Christmas holidays but I need a break. I find myself yearning for a few lie ins, yearning for time to myself, visions of beaches flitting across my mind and daydreaming of running away and leaving my day-to-day behind.

Luckily for me next week is reading week, breaking up the term into two and giving me a week to catch up on corrections and de-stress for a few days. However I may only be swapping work-stress for leisure -stress as I will be off to Germany for a few days on Friday.

But even though I will be exchanging running from class to class to running from relative to relative and entertaining students to entertaining my one-and-a-half-year old nephew, I am removing myself from my daily routine, distracting myself from my work-life stress.

And while I still will be  daydreaming about a sunny isle and a cocktail with and umbrella in it, I am giving my mind a much needed break from dealing with my every-day stress. Funnily enough this is not only important for our well-being but for how we cope with stress.

Research has shown that our brain functions better when we allow it to relax after work. This is down to something called hormesis, a term used to describe the correlation inducing stress and then allowing an adequate time to relax. In sport this means you workout, put stress on your muscles followed by a period of rest, allowing your muscle to grow and strengthen.

The same thing applies to our brains. Studies have shown that neurons, those tiny building blocks that make up our nervous system, become more resistant if we apply the same idea. Periods of stress followed by periods of rest allow them to strengthen and help them ward of diseases like epilepsy, migraines and even dementia. Interestingly the thing that puts stress on neurons is something we do anyway, to more or less success, THINKING.

But to encourage the hardiness we need we also need to take breaks. Of course the most desired way of doing so is to pack a bag and fly away but since we don’t have enough possibilities to do so we are often left with more  affordable mini-break options. Sleep is one of them, since when we wander off into dreamland our brain can relax and recharge, but even reading a book, watching a film or investing time in our chosen hobby gives  the brain enough distraction from stress and strengths our nervous system. We just need to remember to keep taking those all important breaks.
So with Friday only two sleeps away I will just hold on to my tea-breaks for now and hope that my week long break will be enough to gear me up for the rest of the semester. With the words of the Roman poet Ovid

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.