You're exhausted and you desperately need a breather, but thinking about the dishes you have to wash also stresses you out. So when you finally have 15 free minutes, will doing chores or putting your feet up provide you with the greatest stress relief?

"Taking a break causes physiological changes in your body that counteract the harmful effects of stress," says Herbert Benson, M.D., president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute, in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Instead of doing household chores, sit and do what benefits you most, whether it�s meditating, taking a short nap, daydreaming, listening to music, or reading. "When you step out of the momentum of busyness, your blood pressure and heart rate can lower, breathing can slow, metabolism may go down, and your brain can become less active," says psychiatrist Jeffrey Brantley, director of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program at Duke University's Center for Integrative Medicine, in Durham, North Carolina. And the effects can be long-term. "Taking a daily break," Benson says, "helps to consistently block the effects of stress hormones."

But if merely thinking about what you've left undone keeps you from relaxing, go ahead and get the chores over with. "Spending 15 minutes to reduce the amount of clutter in your life is time well spent," Brantley says. "No point in spending your break worrying about chores."

Your Turn:

What would you do with an extra 15 minutes? Share your answer here!