You've had a long week at work and three full days to relax your stress away. Here are some ways to get the most out of your relaxation this weekend.

Consider Going Off the Grid

Whether you can't pull yourself away from work or you're just starting to feel phantom vibrations from your phone, it may be time to take a little break from technology. As much as it can make our lives easier, it can also cause a lot of stress, so if you really want to get the most of your relaxation this weekend, consider putting the phone away for awhile—or at least turning off your notifications.

On the flipside, there are a lot of cool ways that technology can help you relax, and we'll be mentioning some of them in this post. It's up to you whether you want to go off the grid or not—everyone's different, and if technology isn't the root of your stress, you might be fine keeping it on and making use of some of these tools.

Get the Best Sleep of Your Life

Napping is, of course, one of our favorite ways to relax. We've shown you how to make the most of your naps, master the power nap, or even reboot your brain with a caffeine nap. Looking for the perfect time to squeeze in a few Zs? Calculate the best time with this interactive map wheel.

If you're having trouble sleeping, this is a great weekend to reboot your sleep cycle and start getting the rest you deserve. You can do this on your own, but we've also found certain tech gadgets to be pretty useful, not to mention a few smartphone apps, too.

Exercise Your Way to Tranquility

Exercise is obviously a great way to relieve stress, but if you're looking to do something a bit more physical without an intense workout, we've got solutions for that too. Try relaxing with our guide to meditation for the rest of us, or finding a good yoga style that fits your needs. Throw some tech into the mix with apps like Breathing Zone and Buddhify if you feel like you need a bit of extra help, but again, they're far from necessary to get the full benefits of these exercises.

Take On a Relaxing Weekend Project

Of course, some of us just can't stand doing nothing—we want to do the stuff we love! We've got all the guides you could possibly need for kicking back with a few video games or some light reading, but if you want to get a bit more involved you can learn a new skill, finally ditch cable TV, or even hack your gadgets and void some warranties. Take a look back at our Weekendhacker archives for any weekend-long projects you may have missed, and take this long weekend to do a little catch up. Just make sure you're ready to hit the ground running when you get back to work! Photo by Chris Isherwood.

Got any other great relaxation techniques you're going to put into practice this weekend? Share them with us in the comments.

Title photo remixed from Michael Condouris.

The human body and its brain are pretty incredible. They're also fragile and dumb. Realizing this can make your life miserable, or you can look at it as an opportunity and take control. This weekend, learn a few built-in superpowers you may not have known you had. All they take is a little practice.

Let's go piece by piece, from head to toes.

Your Head

There are a lot of fun things you can do with your head, inside and out. Let's start with the brain. We post multiple mind hacks a week, so there is no shortage of ways to trick yourself into being smarter, more creative, happier, and whatever else. Nonetheless, mind hacks can be applied a bit broadly and simply refer to finding better ways of thinking or learning a little bit more about the weird stuff your brain might make you do. We want something bigger. When you stimulate the brain in various ways, it will react positively or negatively or somewhere in between. It may seem like we have no control over how this happens or how it makes us feel, but we do. Sometimes its as simple as priming your brain with the right words. It can also be as simple as conjuring up a feeling. If you really want to hack your brain, read our guide. It'll introduce you to some of the basic techniques you can use to gain more control over your own behavior. Doing so can help you use food cravings to your advantage, make difficult decisions more easily, create stronger bonds with people you care about, and prevent your brain from sabotaging your life.

But the outside of your head can do some neat things, too. You can dialate or shrink your pupils on command. If that doesn't seem particularly useful, you can improve your night vision by just moving in and out of light and dark spaces (or just use a cellphone to alternate between light and dark without having to actually go anywhere). Pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth can keep you from crying when dealing with onions and even prevent brain freeze. Need to swallow a tricky pill? Follow these instructions and squeeze your left thumb to decrease your gag reflex. You can even amplify your car's remote signal by point it into your mouth. It's kind of scary how many weird tricks you can play with your own head.

Your Hands and Feet

Your hands and feet are kind of useful, but they have their downsides. One such example is when they "fall asleep" and are ravaged by pins and needles. If your hands come down with this problem, just relax the nerves in your neck. When it happens to your feet, the best thing you can do is walk around.

There's much more you can do with your hands. We've already mentioned squeezing your left thumb to reduce your gag reflex, but you can also relieve nausea by pressing on your wrist. In fact, there are quite a lot of neat things you can do with a little acupressure. But if you'd rather just impress people, check out these 10 badass things you can do one-handed. The moment you open a beer bottle, shuffle a deck of cards, or eat an entire chicken wing with only one hand, you'll get a round of applause.

There isn't quite so much neat stuff you can do with your feet, but if you're looking to burn some fat there is one thing: start tapping your feet. Apparently fidgeting is a big calorie-buster.

Your, Uh, Middle Area

Oh, the magical things you can do with your crotch. Most of the time we shy away from the area but there are a few tricks worth noting. One of the biggest problems we have is our bladders—specifically when we need to empty them out and there's nowhere to (politely) do so. When you're stuck without a place to pee, scratch your leg or rub the back of your calf. It can help reduce the need. After the business has been done, many men are probably familiar with the issue of getting it all out. When there are a few drops left, several Redditors suggest applying light pressure to your perineum to get it all out. This might not be the world's least embarrassing solution, but it works for many men.

Your Whole Body

Some tricks work well for your entire body. If you get hot, knowing your body's cooling points can make it easier for you to cool off faster. It's not about cooling your entire body, but rather cooling of certain areas to expedite the process. If you've got limited cooling resources, this is especially helpful.

Plenty of other things can affect your body in interesting ways. Learning a few breathing exercises can increase your stamina when exercising. Simply looking at sick people can give your immune system a boost. With a little practice, you can boost your alcohol tolerance. Those are just a few examples. You'll find more on our body hacks tag page.

Photos by Sofia Santos (Shutterstock) and agsandrew.

So you've spent a lot of time discovering and downloading new music, but your library's a mess. You're still using the same player you used 5 years ago, the files are in 10 different places on your hard drive, and your metadata looks like a tornado hit it. Take some time this weekend to clean up your library once and for all.

Note: If you're using a streaming service like Spotify, you probably don't have much of a library to clean up—it's already done for you. This is more for the old school among us that are still carefully crafting a local library of ripped and downloaded songs. If you've sprinted into the streaming-only future, these tips probably aren't for you. But check out the last section to make sure you haven't missed anything the streaming world!

Step One: Pick Your Player

Before you start messing with your music, take a look at what you use to play it and decide whether it's really what you want to use. Windows users have a ton of choices, from the all-around Winamp to the super-customizable foobar2000 and the insanely organized MediaMonkey (not to mention Windows Media Player, Zune Player, MusicBee, Clementine, and a whole host of others). Mac users have fewer choices, but that doesn't mean you have to settle for iTunes—take a look at Sonora, our new favorite music player for Mac, or the cross-platform Clementine. Linux users, you're lucky—you've got some of the best music players out there today, so dig into those repositories and try them out.

When it comes to portable players, most of you are using your phone these days. If you're an iPhone user, you're probably using the default iPod app—and with good reason, it's pretty solid and feature-filled. However, there are a lot of other fantastic apps you should try out, too. Android users have a ton of great apps, too, like the fantastic and powerful PowerAMP. If you aren't using iOS or Android, be sure to check out our five favorite digital music players for more inspiration.

Step Two: Clean Up That Mess You Call a Library

Alright, now it's time to dig into the good stuff. Step back and take a look at your library. Before even looking at the metadata, start searching for songs you don't want and delete them. Take a look at the bitrate of your files, too—are they really low quality? You might want to throw them out and re-import higher quality versions. Are you using lossless files? Find out whether it's really worth the effort by taking an ABX test. There's no reason to cultivate multiple music libraries at once if you don't have to.

Next, roll up your sleeves and start fixing all that messed up metadata. A lot of programs like TuneUp will do the legwork for you, but if you really have a certain way you want things done, it's going to be a multi-step process. You'll probably have to use a combination of programs like MusicBrainz Picard and Mp3tag to get things just the way you want them. Check out our start-to-finish guide to whipping your metadata into shape for more, and don't be afraid to experiment with different apps and techniques to find something that works for you.

Step Three: Sync Your Mobile Devices

Now that your library's in shape, it's time to sync it back down to your mobile device. Lots of programs—especially Windows ones—will have syncing built-in, which means you're already ready to go. If you're using Android, check out which desktop player is best for syncing. iOS users are mostly stuck with iTunes, but that doesn't mean you can't use another player for day-to-day listening. If you're a Mac user that doesn't use iOS, you're going to have a bit more trouble—check out iSyncr, Winamp, and DoubleTwist if you want to sync to Android, or Middleman for syncing to just about anything else. Lasly, iOS users should remember that even though iTunes doesn't support it, there are a lot of ways to get your music off your iPod and back on your computer if need be.

Don't stop at the mobile devices, either—if you have other computers in your house, you can sync your music library across all of them with Dropbox.

Step Four: Stream Your Library Anywhere

So you've got a perfectly put together library for your home computer and your mobile devices, but what if you want your music elsewhere? The last thing you'll want to do is set up a music streaming service for those times when you can't have all 60GB of your library handy. We highly recommend setting up Google Music as your secondary media player: it's free, you can store your entire library on it (no matter how obscure your tracks), and even stream it to mobile devices that run Android or iOS. However, if you don't want to go through the trouble of uploading everything, you can also sync your library to services like Spotify and Rdio, both of which have a pretty solid selection of syncable music built-in. Check out our cloud music comparison to find the best service for listening to your library anywhere.

Lastly, it's worth mentioning that streaming your library across the house is also a pretty cool way to enjoy your music. We're big fans of Apple's AirPort Express and AirPlay here. And, even if you aren't an Apple fan, you can still make your entire home AirPlay compatible, no Mac and iOS loyalty required. Of course, there are a lot of AirPlay alternatives you can use, too. Whatever you decide, it shouldn't be hard to have your music handy wherever you go, even if your library's safely stored on your home machine.

Got any of your own tips for crafting the perfect music library? Share them with us in the comments.

Title photo remixed from Charlotte L.

Although cloud services have made thumb drives a bit less useful for a lot of us, they're still a staple of every geek's toolkit because there are so many things you can do with them. If you've got one or four thumb drives sitting around and want to make sure they're put to good use, here are plenty of awesome things you can do with them.

Install, Recover, and Backup Your Operating System

Thumb drives are potentially system lifesavers, as they can house all sorts of helpful utilities and can even act as a boot drive in case of emergency. Windows users should follow our complete guide to system salvaging with a thumb drive. Mac users will want to take the OS X Lion installer they downloaded from the Mac App Store (or that came with their computer) and create a thumb drive installer in case things go south. Linux users have the most options as many Linux distributions will fit on almost any thumb drive. With any OS, you can store plenty of utilities you might need on the drives as well. For some suggestions, check out the utilities section of the Mac, Linux, and Windows App Directories.

Give Each Drive Its Own Purposes

Whether you want to put a retro arcade, portable app suite, an encrypted spy drive with sensitive information, or virtually anything else in your pocket, you can. Thumbs can store a mess of files, or they can have a single purpose that makes them a lot more useful. This way you never have to figure out what files are on what drives. Assign duties to specific drives, give them a label, and you can just grab the one(s) you need when you're heading out the door. Alternatively, thumb drives with specific purposes or themes can make a great geeky gift.

Make a Modern Mix Tape

Some thumb drives start as mix tapes, so it's not a far stretch to repurpose a drive you already have for the purpose. You can include a selection of MP3s and offer it up as a gift, or create several folder-based playlists for your own use when you want to listen to music easily from any computer.

Keep One Drive Completely Empty

Sometimes the best use of a thumb drive is to have it ready to copy files from one computer to another, and doing that requires empty space. If you've got a few thumb drives, plan to keep one completely clean and in your tech survival kit (or just your go bag) so you'll be prepared for any unexpected file transfers. I have an 8GB drive always ready to go for this purpose. It only cost a few dollars to buy and it hardly takes up any space. Having it around ensures I always have the ability to port files between machines if I need to, and I end up using it often for that purpose. While you can choose to format the drive however you like, I'd recommend choosing a file system format that works cross-platform (like exFAT) so most computers won't have difficulty reading it.