A 5-minute break for your well-being

To enjoy this 5-minute vacation, the first thing you need to do is disconnect yourself from the outside world. Not completely, of course, just switch off or silence your cell phone for 5 minutes, so that a ping or a flash on the screen does not distract you.

Sit in your balcony

Sit in your balcony early in the morning or at the end of a long and tedious day to treat yourself to a hot cup of your choice of drink— creamy coffee or thick steaming tea... Gaze at the blue sky or whatever bits of blue sky that peek out from behind 10-storey residential properties. Enjoy your tea, enjoy these 5 minutes. And when you do, try to put aside all the worldly worries.

Leave work for a walk

Modern-day office buildings are steel-glass cages. In many office buildings, the windows cannot be opened.

Samia Tasnim, who works at a financial institution, said that their office building in Uttara, Dhaka, has sealed windows. "On days when there is a power outage and the diesel-powered generator does not work properly, the indoor environment becomes unbearable," Tasnim said. "On such bad days, most employees have to leave the workplace."

Power outage or not, the air-tight office spaces that are fully air-conditioned do not allow people to breathe in the outside air. To take a break from an air-tight, fast-paced office environment, go outdoors and take a short walk. And while you do this, silence your constant companion, your cell phone. If possible, go for a lunchtime walk to re-energise your mind and body, even it is for just 5 minutes.

Listen to a favourite song

Set your cell on the silent mode, close your eyes and use headphones to listen to a favourite song. Your focus should be on the song alone, its lyrics and its rhythm, nothing else. Soak up the song, feel it to the core. This 5-minute vacation will help you lose yourself in a whole different world.

Read

Read something unrelated to your work or studies. It can be a feature article published by National Geographic, interesting recipes on a culinary blog, or jokes that will make you laugh hard. Read anything, anything that is not related to your task at hand.

Daydream

Yes, daydream. Just close your eyes for 5 minutes and daydream about anything. Let your thoughts come in and leave your mind. Remember to keep your eyes closed the entire time.

Cut out 5 minutes for yourself from a day of 1,440 minutes. It is not much. Use these 5 minutes to give yourself a break. The world out there is demanding, so we often push ourselves too hard to achieve the goals of life. But having to push ourselves all the time leaves us exhausted, overwhelmed and depressed. So sometimes, all we need to do is just sit still and let the clock tick away.