Recharge and Refuel: Use Lunchtime to Reduce Workday Stress

You deserve more than a snack

Welcome! I’m Dr. Jillian, a physician leader, mom, and coach who is on a mission to help other high achieving professionals and recovering perfectionists reduce stress and overwhelm, recover from burnout, and learn to live the lives they truly want to be living. This week’s post kicks off a series about how to bring stress relief into our days by incorporating it into what we already do (rather than adding one more thing to our to-do lists). Today you’ll learn how to carve out at least 15 minutes for lunch, and the coming weeks will feature posts about creating a morning routine and how to wind-down from work (including an amazing guest post featuring a 20-minute yoga sequence just for Humans Leading Readers).

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Photo by Karen Sewell on Unsplash

Earlier in my career, I almost never ate lunch. Or, if I did, I ate it while rushing from place to place or while looking at patient data in front of the computer.

Sometimes, I only ate snacks.

On the worst days, I didn’t eat at all. This left me feeling edgy and exhausted by the afternoon, and it often resulted in me being more critical and irritable with my coworkers than I intended.

It wasn’t until I worked with a coach that I noticed the pattern.

During one of our first sessions, I told her that I wanted to work on my self-regulation skills because I often found myself feeling frustrated at work. She recommended that I track my frustration for a week so that we could analyze it together in our next session.

So, for a week of work, I wrote down each time I was feeling frustrated and the conditions at the time of the frustration: time of day, who was there, whether I had eaten or not, etc.

I didn’t need to wait for our next session to see what was happening:

• It was primarily in the afternoon.

• I had generally not eaten lunch or taken a break since I started work.

• I was trying to exist on coffee and snacks.

To my horror, my frustration wasn’t due to other people’s behavior. It was because of my own. I wasn’t taking care of myself, and this was leaving me feeling irritable and ready to find fault with others.

It was clear that I needed to change up what I was doing in order to change how I was feeling during the day.

The first step was actually making time for a real lunch, even if I only had 15 minutes to do so. I started meal prepping and brining my lunch to the hospital. I worked with my coach to shift my mindset around eating lunch, coming to see it as a priority rather than an inconvenience. And I started saving snacks only for times when things really were too busy to stop for more than a few minutes at a time.

As much as I love snacks, I think we deserve better during our busy workdays.

I don’t mean to imply that convenience food doesn’t have its place in our lives. As someone who sometimes needs to run from one emergency to the next, having snacks available to keep me going is essential. While I’m working in the hospital, I often have a snack in my pocket to eat to keep me from getting hangry.

This can be great in a pinch.

But, because of the culture of false urgency, a lot of us seem to be using these foods as meal substitutes on most days in order to rush from one non-urgent task to the next.

Or we completely skip meals because we feel that we don’t have time for a break. However, as I said in the post linked above:

Feeling like you can’t take a break is a sign that you need to take a break before your body decides to do it for you.

Lunch is the perfect opportunity to reset, if only we take advantage of it.

Grabbing a snack or a quick meal might feel efficient, but it has its costs.

It’s easy to rely on convenience and packaged foods to get through the day. While these options are quick, they often lack what your body needs to stay energized and focused.

You can find yourself stuck in a cycle:

• You’re feeling sluggish and hungry, so you grab a high carbohydrate snack on your way from one task to another in order to get a boost of energy.

• Later, when you’re feeling cranky due to the energy crash, you may lash out at other people like I did or lack the focus to complete your work. And you might find yourself reaching for an afternoon boost of caffeine that leads to jitteriness and poor sleep later that night.

• You wake in the morning feeling irritable and exhausted, so you reach for a high carbohydrate breakfast and more caffeine.

• And the cycle continues.

Over time, this can lead to sleep deprivation, deteriorating work relationships, and chronic stress.

Nothing is wrong with eating carbs. I love carbs. And I love coffee.

But we can’t live on carbs and coffee alone.

Prioritizing actual meals during our day is essential for sustaining long-term productivity and overall well-being.

Taking a few extra minutes to enjoy a satisfying, balanced lunch can make all the difference in how you feel and perform throughout the day.

It’s not just about the energy that food can give you.

It’s about the ability to actually step away from work to allow ourselves to experience mental rest.

I think that we all know this to be true. But it can be hard to wrap our minds around it. Instead, our brains often tell us messages that keep us from taking a break.

Three Beliefs That Keep You from Eating a Mindful Lunch

Despite the importance of a balanced midday meal, many high achievers fall into the trap of skipping lunch due to limiting beliefs:

• “I don’t have time to eat lunch” or “I should be working instead of eating”

  • Many people feel that taking a break will derail their productivity, but in reality, stepping away to eat helps you recharge and work more efficiently once you get back to your to-do list.

  • Your brain needs breaks because you’re a human being, not a human doing.

• “I can work and eat”

  • This stems from the pressure to stay busy and appear dedicated. People think that they can and should multitask in order to not “get behind” on their ever-expanding to-do lists.

    • Over time, this leads to more stress and brain fog.

  • Prioritizing single tasking at lunch can improve focus and overall performance, making it a valuable part of your workday

• “I don’t need to eat”

  • This belief downplays the body’s need for nourishment and our need for a break.

  • Skipping lunch leads to lower energy levels, decreased concentration, and increased stress by the afternoon.

In order to incorporate a lunchtime break into our day, we have to begin to address these unhelpful mindsets.

Here are 4 ways to address limiting beliefs about lunch:

• Schedule lunch like a meeting: Treat lunch as a non-negotiable part of your day by blocking off time in your calendar. This helps combat the belief that "I don’t have time" and creates a structured break to refuel and recharge, just like any other important task.

  • This can be hard to do in the hospital. So, I often make a plan to eat around a certain time and stick to it unless there is an emergency happening.

  • As a leader, it’s important to model the importance of eating so that your team feels supported to do the same.

• Shift your mindset around productivity: Challenge the belief that "I should be working instead of eating" by reframing lunch as an essential tool for productivity. Remind yourself that nourishing your body with a balanced meal improves focus, mood, and energy, which ultimately makes you more effective during the afternoon.

  • As a leader, it’s important to also recognize that your team needs this as well.

• Create a work-free lunch zone: To combat the belief that "I can be working while eating," designate your lunch break as a time to step away from work entirely.

  • Studies show that multitasking during meals, like checking emails or working, increases stress and reduces the mental break your brain needs to recharge. It also makes you less likely to enjoy what you are eating and more likely to snack later in the day.

  • By fully disconnecting, you’ll return to your tasks more focused and energized, benefiting both your well-being and productivity.

• Remember that all humans need food: The belief "I don't need to eat" often stems from the idea that skipping lunch can save time or that the body can power through without food. However, this mindset ignores the body’s need for consistent nourishment to maintain energy, focus, and well-being.

  • Skipping meals can lead to low blood sugar, which affects your mood, productivity, and decision-making abilities.

  • Over time, regularly skipping lunch can result in fatigue, irritability, and even burnout. This is what happened in my own life.

  • Just as you wouldn’t skip refueling a car during a long drive, your body requires regular meals to function at its best. Prioritizing lunch is an essential form of self-care, allowing you to sustain your energy and work efficiently throughout the day.

A recent lunch of mine: salad with roasted butternut squash, apple, cheese, almonds, and apple cider vinaigrette.

Looking for Inspiration? Try these 3 Fall-Inspired Lunches

One thing not everyone knows about me is that I really enjoy cooking. If I wasn’t a physician, I would’ve become a chef. So, it’s fun for me to try out new things when I’m meal-prepping.

I try to prep before I start long stretches of work in order to have food to bring to work. For a balanced meal, it's important to include a variety of nutrients, especially complex carbohydrates, lean proteins, and healthy fats. These ingredients digest more slowly, keeping you full and energized for hours.

In a pinch, I buy some of the ingredients already prepared or a premade meal that I know will be satisfying and give me energy. There’s no shame in eating frozen meals.

But, if you want to try some new recipes to carry you through fall, here are three great ones.

First up is a hearty bowl:

This is a copycat recipe for a Sweetgreen bowl featuring wild rice, sweet potatoes, apples, and almonds. There is also goat cheese and chicken. Yum.

The combination of ingredients gives you a mix of carbohydrates, protein, and fats which can keep you energized and satisfied throughout the rest of your workday.

Time saving tips: while this recipe has you make your own dressing, I sometimes buy dressing as a way to save time. Then, I bring all of the ingredients separately and I toss them together at work in a big bowl (see photo above). This might take 2 extra minutes at work, but it allows me to save time at home on meal prepping.

Next, try a Fall salad

Farro is my favorite grain, and this salad is full of it. The nutty texture goes perfectly with the sweet potatoes and kale, and it stands up to meal prepping without getting mushy.

You could pair this salad with some protein (chicken, cheese, nuts, etc.) to make it more filling. You can also change up the grain for quinoa, brown or wild rice, barley, etc. depending on your taste and dietary needs.

Use the time saving tips above to save yourself time. A balsamic vinaigrette (or other favorite dressing) would work well here. I’ve also used pre-cooked grains from a package to save myself time.

Lastly, my favorite fall lunch: Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto

The risotto here is baked in the oven, so you don’t have to worry about standing at the stove stirring. I love that most of the time is hands-off while the rice cooks and the butternut squash roasts.

This one warms up well to give you enough meals for a few days. I usually skip frying the sage and just add in some dried sage to taste at the end. It’s a lot faster.

My favorite advice about lunch= eat it with a knife and fork

I heard another physician say this once, and it stuck with me.

If you’re eating your lunch with a knife and fork, your hands are occupied, leaving you unable to do anything else (like work).

You don’t have to follow this advice exactly but can follow it in spirit. Treat lunchtime as a non-negotiable part of your day in order to refuel and give your brain a break.

I would love to hear your favorite meals or tips for making sure you get lunch during your busy day in the comments. I’m always looking for new recipes.