Tucson, AZ — Reimagined workplace spaces can assist scale back employee stress and improve general well-being, a pair of College of Arizona researchers say in a just lately revealed paper.
The researchers suggest a framework based mostly on seven areas for designing the constructed environment for well-being: resiliency, environment, motion, relationships, sleep, spirituality and diet.
Paper co-author Esther Sternberg, a professor of medication and a member of the UA BIO5 Institute, drew on analysis carried out throughout her tenure with the General Services Administration. These research present that workplace format can encourage staff to maneuver extra typically, thereby lowering stress and enhancing sleep.
The paper cites many different research, “such as those showing the sleep-improving effects of natural light, the well-being benefits of nature and the health benefits of proper building air circulation, which can improve cognitive functioning and reduce fatigue by reducing pollutants.”
Sternberg provides: “This paper is a merging of two fields: integrative health and the constructed environment. The idea of designing the constructed environment for bodily health and emotional well-being has been round for a long time, however wasn’t actually the main focus throughout all design fields till very just lately.
“COVID-19 shone a very bright spotlight on designing for mental health because in the wake of the pandemic, there is a pandemic of mental health, of stress, of anxiety around the world. The built environment can play a very important role in reducing stress and enhancing all those elements of integrative health.”
The paper is scheduled for print within the November challenge of the journal Constructing and Surroundings.