If you often feel malaise settling in as you try to concentrate on your work, rest assured that you aren’t alone. According to a statistic shared by Fast Company, occupational depression is estimated to cost employers $1 trillion per year in lost productivity. So, what’s the culprit for these low moods?
While genetics, life experience, and past trauma could be factors as per an Inc. article, there could be lots of little things in your office that, collectively, are dragging on your mood. Like these things...
A lack of nutritious food at close hand
What are the food options in your office? If you’re largely just limited to soda or chocolate, you should act to make sure such unhealthy food isn’t so readily accessible. You could do that by swapping those foods for healthy alternatives like fruit and vegetables.
Other, similarly healthy snacks, like almonds and peanut butter whole-grain crackers, can help you to replenish your nourishing supplies of complex carbohydrates and healthy fats.
Few means of engaging in physical activity
Obviously, a workplace that requires you to type hurriedly for sustained periods of time would not lend itself ideally to getting you physically moving much more than your hands and fingers. However, standing desks and lunchtime workouts remain options.
Those workouts would be especially viable if your office came with on-site exercise facilities. Booking a serviced office from BE Office, for example, would give you ready access to an on-site gym.
Few on-site events promoting good mental health
If you often find yourself mentally struggling in the workplace, one simple reason why could be that the remedies for your psychological woes aren’t exactly in easy reach. In other words, you have to set aside time to look for them. Wouldn’t it be more convenient if they were right there on the premises?
That’s why, if your business doesn’t currently run a busy program of events focused on subjects like self-care, stress management, and resilience, it should certainly reconsider.
Little natural lighting
Did you know that natural light is a hundred times brighter than indoor light? This would help to explain why, even if your office is bathed in electric light, it could make surprisingly little difference to your mental wellness. Let there be light – from the sun, that is!
You can allow more of that light to stream through by opening window blinds currently closed in your office, paving the way for that light to reduce your depression and energize you.
Insufficient greenery
Research has found that, at work, your mood and brain could work optimally when you are exposed to greenery and fresh oxygen produced by plants.
Of course, if your line of work requires you to spend long stretches of time indoors, you might not be able to breathe in fresh air until you get outside for lunch breaks. However, you could still add a small plant to your desk, as even this minor change could appreciably lower stress, anxiety and depression your workplace might otherwise regularly spring upon you.
Rima Chandra is a professional author and blogger.