Did you know your office can make you healthy? Here’s how!
The office is much maligned. It’s where we sit too much, feel tension levels rise, and make poor food choices while eating hunched over our computer. Knowing inactivity, stress and poor nutrition can lead to an increased risk of chronic disease or even shorteni our lifespan, it’s enough to make us want to call in sick. Yet, before we all quit our day jobs, it is possible the office could help make us healthy?
What if one of the very fundamentals of office work could be harnessed to help improve our wellbeing? After all, we need our jobs, and hopefully we even love them. Therefore, if we are going to spend eight hours at them, day after day, it’s time to find and leverage an important asset of office life — our colleagues.
Support
Getting to know your colleagues can be good for your mental health. It opens up the opportunity to increase the flow of communication, from status updates on a project, to how to handle a difficult client. Realizing you are not alone and have peers to support you can help minimize the negative impact of daily work demands. Furthermore, our support of co-workers could in fact be even more beneficial to our mental health. In a fascinating study from 2016 out of the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California, researchers found that those giving support had a reduced activation in the brain in the area related to stress responses. In other words, reaching out and supporting others actually improves our own mental health.
Take the time to learn about the people you work with. Don’t worry if they don’t become your new besties, you are simply looking to find those you can relate to. Start saying hello; ask about their weekend or holiday; discover if you share a common interest, and start enjoying the benefits of your new social network.
Say good-bye to sad lunch
Much has been written about the importance of family dinners. Not only do we tend to enjoy healthier meals, coming together connects us and helps strengthen relationships. Why then, would we chose to spend our lunch time with only the glow of our computer to keep us company? Distracted eating in front of a screen can cause us to eat more calories later in day, turns our workstation into a breeding ground for germs and means we lose out on a much needed break. On the other hand, taking the time to lunch with colleagues helps us bond and create a stronger team identity. The social interaction can also boost our mood and our productivity. A mid-day break gives our brain a chance to replenish its cognitive capacity, and sets us up for a more successful afternoon.
Get to know your office kitchen or cafeteria. As you are heading there, invite a co-worker to join you. Or, ask if you can join the group — chances are great the answer will be a resounding yes. Go one step further by starting a lunchtime walking group and enjoy an extra helping of lunchtime health.
Be inspired
We have a lot to attend to: we need to move more, eat better and remember to prioritize our self-care. We also need to get our work done. What if there was a way to make taking charge of our physical and mental wellbeing a little bit easy? It turns out our social circle can positively influence what we eat, our exercise habits and that close friends can boost to our emotional health. Be inspired by those around you — their efforts can help spark your motivation. In turn, share your goals with others. Not only will you become more accountable to yourself, it helps to build social connections.
Get to know the wellness champions at work and share your own healthy habits with others. Creating a culture of well-being is contagious, and helps ease the barriers to achieving our own version of health.
Ready to learn more about how you can improve your health at work? Visit sproutatwork.com.
