By Pat Ingelse

When we’ve put in long, stressful hours at the office, we expect success and the triumphant feeling that comes with it. But all too often, at the end of the day we find ourselves exhausted and still looking at a long to-do list. What the heck? How does this happen? At such times, it’s essential that we understand and cultivate resilience.

That word might bring to mind the image of a Marine slogging through the mud, or maybe a boxer going one more round. That’s often how we think about resilience — believing that toughing it out as long as possible is the most direct route to success.

To be sure, resilience does help us work hard, but cultivating it takes much more than simply pushing through challenges. Resilience involves periodically stopping, resting, and breathing. This recovery time is not only key to maintaining your mental and physical health, it also empowers you to stay productive.

When we don’t take that time to recharge, it has a direct negative impact on us. Research shows a direct correlation between failing to take time to recover and an increase in health and safety issues. One estimate pegs the annual cost of this lack of recovery at $62 billion a year.

So how do we recover and build resilience? You might assume that if you stop working on a task like answering emails, your brain will simply naturally recover given a few hours off, and that when you start again the next day, you’ll be back at 100 percent.

But just because work stops, that doesn’t mean you are recovering. You can clock out at 5 p.m. and then spend the evening thinking, talking, and worrying about work — even as you drift off to sleep. When you wake up, you may have rested for several hours and you can still feel exhausted. That’s because rest and recovery are different.

To build resilience — to recover — you need to be willing to stop. That means spending time off of your phone and computer, eating lunch away from your desk, and actually using your vacation days! (Is the thought making you twitch a bit with anxiety? That’s a sign you really need to practice this.)

To build resilience at work, you should focus on two kinds of recovery:

Internal: This means taking breathers during the workday. Have lunch away from your desk. Read a book or do a crossword or sudoku instead of checking your phone. Take a short walk. Try a few minutes of meditation. Just breathe!

External: This refers to time off between workdays and during weekends, holidays, and vacations. If you are home but getting overwhelmed watching (or scrolling through) the news or feeling stressed about work, your brain is not getting the break it needs and deserves. Can you turn your attention to a more fulfilling activity, something that leaves you feeling recharged? Can you connect with family or friends for an hour (the kind who don’t drain you!), read a new book (or reread a favorite), or just sip a cup of decaffeinated tea?

Give it a try! Practice taking these strategic periodic breaks and using them in ways that will leave you ready to dive back into the grind. It’s not difficult — it just takes practice. And as you become more resilient, it will pay off in a multitude of ways.