15 Transformative ‘Brain Break’ Ideas for 2025
Brain breaks are the ultimate life hack for ambitious women. It's the simple process of shutting off your brain for a few minutes or even a few hours to gain mental clarity, destress and prepare yourself to tackle your next set of tasks.
It's been proven that taking these mental breaks is hugely advantageous for your productivity and your performance. Say, if you're someone who's pretty ambitious and a bit of a high achiever, brain breaks should definitely be something that you incorporate into your daily routine.
I recently came across the term myself and immediately loved it. I went away and I found fifteen brain break ideas that I think you love.
Quick Movement Breaks
Quick movement brain breaks not only help to destress your mind, but they also help you to move your body and get in those daily steps.
Movement is so important for your health and luckily you don't always need to do an hour-long gym session to achieve it.
Here are a few examples of quick movement breaks that you could try to give your brain a rest.
5-Minute Dance Party
This one might feel cringey at first, but it's super fun and really efficient. It works best if you work from home, but feel free to do it in your office if you want to!
The next time you're feeling a bit mentally fatigued, put on your favourite song and dance. This doesn't need to be anything to extravagant, just a simple bop up-and-down will do.
Stretch It Out
Stretching is an amazing way to destress and relax. You can find tons of 5-minute stretching routines on YouTube that are completely free to use.
I recommend taking some time to find your favourites and then adding them to playlist so that you can access them throughout your day.
Jump Rope or Jumping Jacks
If you're looking for something a little bit more physically challenging, jump rope or jumping jacks are a really great way to get in some high-intensity movement in just 5 minutes.
This works well for people who have a garden or an outside space at their office. All you need is a rope, or nothing at all if you choose the jumping Jack option!
To make it a bit more fun, try and challenge yourself to see how many jumps you can do in a row. Once you've found your baseline, set yourself a target to improve overtime.
Walking
This one is my personal favourite. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that walking comes with millions of benefits. It's great for your mental health, is a really easy way to keep fit, and helps to boost your creativity - which is pretty important for us busy girls!
You will probably end up wanting to do this for more than 5 minutes. But even so, you don't need to do an hour-long hike to feel the benefits of walking.
To turn this into the ultimate brain break, try listening to your favourite music or a funny podcast that switches your mind off of anything that has been stressing you out during the day.
Yoga Flow
This is a bit like stretching, but at a slightly more advanced level. Yoga helps you to connect with your breath and your body, and is amazing for reducing stress and easing anxiety.
If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, take yourself into a quiet space and put on a 5-minute yoga flow. You will be amazed at how good you feel afterwards.
Creative Brain Boosters
Creative brain boosters are all about overcoming mental blocks. These are particularly helpful for people who work in creative roles such as social media or marketing.
Also see: 20 brain dump journal prompts
Doodle or Sketch
Keep a blank notebook or sketchbook in your bag, set a timer and doodle freely for 5 minutes whenever you feel a creative block.
If you don't know what to draw, try using prompts or questions that can guide you.
I find this super relaxing and is something that I tend to do if I find myself feeling bored with my work.
Colouring Break
Adult colouring books are a great way to relax and unwind. I started using these when I was going through a digital detox and haven't stopped. I actually prefer doing colouring to watching TV now and it's so much more beneficial for your mind.
If you often resort to doom-scrolling on social media when you feel bored, I would really recommend giving this a go.
My favourite colouring book is this one from Amazon which has over 100 pages so it won't run out anytime soon.
Write a Micro-Story
If you have a pretty dull job and you feel like your creative spark is being limited, consider taking a break to write your own micro story.
It will feel like you're finally allowing your creative side to breathe and will help you to maintain your creative skills.
Mind Mapping
Sometimes a good mind map can solve all of your problems. It's crazy how easy it can be to see things from a different perspective when they're dumped onto page in the form of a mind map.
This brain break idea can be used for numerous reasons. What do you need to clear mental clutter, solve a problem that has been bugging you for hours, or simply get a few things off your chest.
Listen to Instrumental Music
Studies have shown that classical music can reduce stress by activating the parasympathetic nervous system. So the next time that you feel yourself getting stressed or anxious, close down your laptop, pop your headphones in and listen to some Mozart (or whatever takes your fancy!)
Mindfulness & Relaxation
Sometimes you might need to take a brain break because things are getting a bit too much and you feel overwhelmed. This is where mindfulness and relaxation techniques can come in handy.
Deep Breathing Exercise
One of my favourite deep breathing exercises that you can do in less than 5 minutes is box breathing. Close down your laptop for a second and put your phone in your pocket. Then inhale for four seconds, hold for four seconds and exhale for four seconds.
Set a timer and repeat this for however long you feel necessary.
As you're breathing, try to distract yourself from whatever is that's worrying you. I find that the easiest way to do this is to try and focus on my breath, the temperature, and what I can hear around me (it’s helpful if you can do this in a quiet room.)
Guided Meditation
If you're looking for a surefire way to give your brain a break, try a free guided meditation.
You can find tonnes of guided meditation apps on the app stores or you can simply use free videos that are available on YouTube.
Guided meditations are the perfect solution for people who struggle to stay concentrated when doing meditation by themselves. I personally can't keep myself focused for more than about two minutes without a guided track.
If you want to completely switch off, guided meditations are definitely the way to go. Similarly to deep breathing practises, I recommend doing this in a quiet, uncomfortable space so that you can fully focus on the meditation track.
Gratitude List
This brain break activity is perfect for those days when everything seems a bit much. If you're struggling with low mood or struggling to stay optimistic, writing a gratitude list is a brilliant way to quickly shift into a positive mindset.
It's as easy as it sounds. Simply grab a notebook and write a list of all of the good things that have happened in your day and everything that you are grateful for.
I feel like everyone knows that gratitude is beneficial but not enough practise what they preach. This is your sign to write a gratitude list today.
Here are some gratitude journal prompts to help you.
Visualization Exercise
Close your eyes and imagine your dream life. This allows you to escape from reality for just 5 minutes And helps you to align your daily actions and decisions with your ideal life.
Visualisation is incredibly powerful when you are on a personal growth journey. And even better, it's something that you can do and just 5 minutes a day.
You don't need any fancy equipment to do visualisation. However, it can help to have some visualisation journal prompts.
Pet Therapy
I left my favourite till last. Sometimes there's nothing better than spending 5 minutes playing with your pets.
If you don't have pets of your own, head down to your local park and I can guarantee that a dog will probably come up and ask for your attention.
Petting dogs has been scientifically proven to lower cortisol, which is a stress hormone. In fact, this might be a good reason to e-mail your boss and ask for an office dog.
Final thoughts
Taking brain breaks might feel like a distraction at first, but it's actually a really great way to increase your productivity. If you're someone who regularly experiences symptoms of burnout, including these brain breaks into a daily routine could be a game changer.
Save this to your Pinterest so that you can come back to it later and send it to someone who needs to take a brain break of their own.
