4 Fun Games To Play At Work On National Stress Awareness Day

The 6th of November, a day to take a step back, relax, and help employees de-stress.

Most of us know what it’s like to be stressed, being under pressure at work is not a nice feeling and can really take its toll on people. Stress can lead to mental health problems and cause existing problems to be blown out of proportion.

6th of November 2019 is National Stress Awareness Day, a day that gives businesses a great opportunity to take a moment to think about the wellbeing of their employees and truly make them feel that their health is valued.

As a HR manager, one of your responsibilities is to ensure the mental health of your employees is looked after. So how do you keep on top of employee’s mental health and help them d-stress at work? Well, you could advise them to;

• Go for a 10-minute walk?
• Breath deeply
• East a snack
• Chew a piece of gum

All recommended ways that will help employees to de-stress, but there are alternative ways in which you could help. The above tips are all activities that employees will do by themselves, meaning they will more than likely spend that time thinking about the issues that are causing them to stress.

Even if they went for a walk with someone, or took time out to have a 10-minute chat, there is still the tendency to zone out and think about the issue at hand. So what is truly the best way to take everyone’s mind off what is causing them to stress and really allow them to unwind?

By playing games!

Think about it, when was the last time you played a game and spent the whole time worrying? Playing games are great fun and will allow employees to completely take their mind off their work.

So on the 6th of November, what better way to help employees unwind than playing some fun games at work.

We love playing games here at Edays, not just to help employees to feel relaxed, but they are great for team bonding, don’t believe us, check out the video below. We have played tons of games and have picked out our 4 favorite games that you can play to help raise awareness for mental health and help employees relax.

1. Blindfold drawing

A great game to play and even better to watch. The idea of this game is to blindfold 2 people and get them to draw something whilst their teammates guess what it is. As you can imagine, it is very funny the toddler-like creations that your colleagues draw.

How to play:
1. Split players into 2 teams
2. Get each team to nominate someone to be the ‘drawer’ (or ‘artists’ if your posh like that)
3. Sit both the drawers at opposite ends of the table, with a pencil and paper in front of them.
4. Ask the drawer to pick a card from the deck. On these cards will be descriptions of different scenarios, like a man walking a dog, or a plane taking off.
5. Once both drawers have looked at their cards, tell them to put it down and then put the blindfold on them.
6. Now give them 60 seconds to draw what was on their card.

Both teams can shout out at any point, the first team to get the answer wins a point. If no one guesses correct after 60 seconds no team gets a point. The first team to 3 points wins.

What’s needed:
Equipment: pencil, paper, blindfold, cards with descriptions on
Number of players: 4+
Teams: 2

2. Guess the baby

A game that can be played throughout the day and will get everyone talking. Print out a sheet of paper with pictures of employees when they were a baby and get people to guess who they think the baby is. You will need to ask everyone before sending you a picture of them as a baby.

How to play:
1. Print of numerous sheets with multiple pictures of employees when they were a baby on
2. Give everyone a sheet and ask people to write down who they think each baby is
3. Give people until the end of the day and the winner is the person who guesses the most correct
4. If there is a tie, have an extra picture of someone as a baby printed off and the first person to guess who it is, wins.

What’s needed:
Equipment: sheets of paper with baby pictures on, pen
Number of players: Everyone
Teams: N/A

3. Guess the movie

Very much like the drawing game, another one that is hilarious to watch. Split everyone into two teams and get one person to take some blu tack and ask them to mold it into a movie character.

How to play:
1. Split players into two teams
2. Nominate someone to be the ‘molder’
3. One team at a time; get the molder to pick a card from the deck and mold the movie character described
4. The team whom the molder comes from have 2 minutes to guess who they think the character is
5. After the 2 minutes is up if the molders team doesn’t guess correctly, the other team gets 1 guess to see if they can steal the point
6. Each correct guess gets 1 point
7. First to 3 points wins

What’s needed:
Equipment: Blu tack, cards with movie characters on
Number of players: 4+
Teams: 2

4. End of Working Day Quiz

The best way to end the day, an early quiz. Tell everyone that there will be a quiz 30 minutes before the end of the day and ask them to get into teams. A quiz at the end of the day gives everyone a great opportunity to wind down and stop thinking about work early.

How to play:
1. Create a quiz with a couple of different section on; sport, music, general knowledge, etc
2. Split teams into equal groups
3. Ask them questions and get teams to write down their answers
4. The winning team is the one with the most answers
5. If there is a tie, get each team to nominate one person and ask a tie break question

What’s needed:
Equipment: paper, pen
Number of players: 4+
Teams: 2+

We hope these games will help you celebrate National Stress Awareness Day as well as helping your employees to feel less stressed.

And remember that these games don’t just have to be played on the 6th of November, you can play these and many others throughout the year to help employees to relax. Remember happy employees make happy customers.