There is a fundamental link between a Healthy mind and Healthy body, if you have staff who adopt these then you end up with a healthy and productive workplace.
How do these correlate?
Mindfulness: A person’s mindset has a large impact on the way they conduct themselves, not just in the workplace but in their day to day life. By making a conscious effort to recognise the way you are feeling and addressing this straight away, it will reduce stress, make you more aware, provide clarity and help you to focus on the tasks at hand, tuning in to your 5 senses as a form of mindfulness is worth exploring.
Exercise: The exercise you do can be as simple as your walk to and from work or a quick leisurely walk on your lunch break. Ideally you would be doing at least 30 minutes a day. Being active helps you feel better/healthier/more alive, improves quality of sleep, lowers stress hormones and increases endorphins. Exercising results in a happier you and a great lifestyle.
Healthy diet: You are what you eat - when given the choice it’s always recommended to eat healthy foods over processed foods. The positive impacts of this on our body is endless, you feel less sluggish and have boosts of energy, it improves your mood and helps reduce illness and health issues. When eating the right foods you feel healthy and more confident. Although breaking bad eating habits is hard, when you do you won’t regret your decision to have a healthier lifestyle.
Work life balance: You can quickly get into a routine of making your life revolve around your work. Working overtime becomes a regular thing, you sit and eat your lunch at your desk and you find yourself checking your emails after hours and over the weekend. It is important to have ME time, it is essential to your well-being and also helps boosts productivity. The ability to switch off from your work allows you to enjoy the time you are there and when you are not you may even miss being at work!
Benefits to organisations
There are many benefits a healthy / productive workplace can have on your business. The top four are:
Staff: There will be a noticeable difference of the amount of sick leave taken by staff. In addition there will be a reduction in employee turnover and you build a reputation of being a place people want to work at.
Engagement: Your staff will be more engaged and will participate in sharing ideas, helping out their team and getting involved in events such as social and networking events.
Culture: Being happy is naturally infectious, consequently the more staff you have that are happy the more positive environment it will create.
Productivity: The business will see an increase in productivity, deadlines will be made and targets met. It never hurts to see the bottom line increase.
What can you do to assist staff with this?
There are many initiatives you can implement as a business to promote a healthy mind and body.
Healthy food options: Provide your team with healthy alternatives, whether at a staff luncheon, parties or available day to day like a fruit bowl.
Team exercise: Encourage exercise, organise a walking group at lunchtime, participate in company group fun runs or charity run/walks, creating team boot camps sessions or a Pilates class.
Practice mindfulness: Educate your staff around the importance of mindfulness. You can run emotional intelligence courses/seminars. Create meditation groups and allocate time to meditate. Provide relaxing music in the lunch room or create an office wellness room for staff. Employees who take regular breaks from their work, whether it is in the wellness room, to meditate or even make a tea or coffee are actually more productive during the day.
As you can see your mind and body are connected, your “feel-good” attitude to life and work will come from your awareness and proactive behaviour to look after yourself and staff. Although the transition may take time and you may initially receive some push back, the benefits in the change are endless for both yourself, your team and your business.