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Getting stressed at work? You can still relax without leaving the office! Try any of these seven tips to chill out and let your mind recharge itself before you suffer a breakdown.

1. Eat lunch outside and don't tell anyone!
“Our bodies are designed to deal with stress intermittently, not 24 hours a day,” says Dr David Posen, author of The Little Book of Stress Relief. “Removing the source of stress, even for a short time, allows your body to recover, restore and relax.” Brooks Gump, PhD, a psychologist at the State University of New York (Oswego), says we need to grab chances to be safe from stressors. “And that may mean going out to lunch and not telling anyone where you are going.” 

2. Always have your vacation photos available for viewing
Many vacation researchers practise this trick themselves. “Viewing pictures of a restful scene allows you to recapture the feelings associated with the image,” says Posen. Make  them your screensaver or upload them to a free site like Flickr or Picasa for less frequent revisiting.

3. Just keep talking about your holiday
Psychologists call this “rehearsal” – the more (and sooner) you talk about an experience, the better it lodges in your memory, says George Loewenstein, PhD, a professor of  psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. “You may think it’s cheesy to give a  slideshow,” he says, “but the benefit of boring your friends and neighbours is that you’re  more likely to retain the experience yourself.”

4. Spend more time outdoors
Chances are, you spent much of your trip outdoors. Keep it up when you return home. Columbia University researchers found that exposure to the negative air ions created  when air molecules are exposed to sunlight, radiation, moving air, and water generated feelings of alertness, mental clarity, and elevated mood. Tip: Those ions exist outside your office, too.

5. Listen to the sounds of your holiday
Not the screaming kids but the steady, calming sound of waves, for instance. “The natural rhythm of the waves’ ebb and flow helps slow the mind and relax the body,” says Alan Keck, a psychologist with a  private practice in Altamonte Springs, Florida, whose specialties include clinical hypnosis. Slip on your earphones and download a 15-minute nature sound MP3.

6. Breathe deeply
Close your eyes, place both feet on the floor, and breathe deeply through your nose for five to 10 minutes. This is an example of body-focused meditation. “Deep breaths stretch out muscles in your chest and diaphragm and alert your mind that you’re ready to relax,” says Peg Baim, clinical director of the training centre at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.

7. Keep a vacation scent in the drawer
Like that resort soap you swiped, the sunscreen you used at the beach, a sachet of Provencal herbs, or an envelope you stashed with pine needles. “Scent becomes strongly  connected to whatever you felt when you first came into contact with it,” says Rachel  Herz, PhD, author of The Scent of Desire. The parts of the brain that regulate emotion, memory, and smell are close neighbors; they’ll transport you back even when the  vacation seems far off.