I love this misquote of “A change is as good as a rest”, as I feel it is actually more appropriate.

The misquote originally comes from, My family and other animals by Gerald Durrell. To me, it is actually more realistic. A rest is something deep and meaningful, A solid break. A holiday. It revitalises you all the way down. Whereas a feast gives you new energy and a boost .

But back to the point, for me when I’m dealing with stress, I find that a “feast change” can be something really small and easy to implement. My personal favourite is changing clothes, but also merely moving my desk to a different room or a different area, if only for a couple of weeks will provide enough change to shake me out of my current slump and help with any problems I might be having. It also gives you a slightly different perspective, all of which aid when dealing with stress.

It also has a slight extra feature in terms of dealing with your colleagues/clients/bosses. It provides an indication that all is not as normal with you, you don’t even have to say anything, but suddenly starting to wear suits when you normally wouldn’t. Or suddenly turning up at a slightly different time or a slightly earlier time. Will make any managers worth their salt suddenly pay attention to you, but without making any overt fuss.

Often they will reach out to you to with a query, which opens the gateway to providing a better longer term solution, rather than the stopgap change that you have implemented. So it is truly a win win.

It has the final fun thing when dealing with your colleagues or bosses, In that you have not made a fuss or complaint. You have merely changed something, and that I find in most major corporations provides a far better indication that something needs resolving than all the complaints in the world. Senior managers and corporations deal with complaints in a never ending stream, they’re just part of their lives. Someone fixing or changing things for themselves on the other hand, that’s different, if they can fix things themselves, then they are valuable and valuable people need looking after. 

I also see this happening from the other side of the tracks, a change in a team member can signify unhappiness that they don’t want to make a fuss over, and being awake to this can prove to people that you think of them as people and not just a project resource.

Something that I used to do back when I had the purple patch office was have a Sunday afternoon nap on a Sofa.

It felt like a stolen guilty pleasure. but it wasn’t till I lost it, that I realised quite how valid it was as a weekly reset,

Those 60 to 90mins, Once a week, closed off one week and got you ready for the next one. My wife has known the value of a good nap for as long as I’ve known her. If you had what I would call a ‘traditional English upbringing’ you will already know about the Sunday afternoon matinee nap, taken after the large Sunday dinner and during the slightly boring Sunday afternoon movie on BBC 1. But we have lost them. I feel that in the new modern world, we should take them back.

They feel good because they are a bonus to the minimum sleep a modern life gives you, and in addition they genuinely feel like a different form of sleep. I don’t know the science behind it if indeed there is any. The only thing I know is you must have them in a different place to your normal bed, on the sofa, in a garden or park, just somewhere where they feel “stolen” 

Disclaimer:  I am fully aware that these are privileged stress tips. I’m aware that they’re not helpful to people whose life is a never ending hard grind, where no time is rest, But if anyone gets any joy or help from them then they’ve done their job.