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Jamie Hailstone is a freelance journalist and author, who has also contributed to numerous national business titles including Utility Week, the Municipal Journal, Environment Journal and consumer titles such as Classic Rock.
August 23, 2018

Stress

Academics claim open plan offices can cut stress

Working in open offices can help reduce stress and encourage staff to be more physically active, according to a new study.

A study by academics from the University of Arizona used stress and activity sensors to monitor 231 people working in federal office buildings in the United Sates.

The workers wore stress and activity sensors around the clock for three workdays and two nights.

The idea was to evaluate the workers’ activity and stress levels both inside and outside of the office environments.

It found that workers in open-plan workplaces were 32% more physically active at the office than those in private offices and 20% more active than those in cubicles.

And more importantly, workers who were more physically active at the office had 14% less physiological stress after hours, compared to those who were less physically active at work.

“This research highlights how office design, driven by office workstation type, could be an important health-promoting factor,” said Dr Esther Sternberg, research director of the UA Center for Integrative Medicine and senior author on the study.

Previous studies around the world have shown that office workers can be less physically active than people in other professionals and that can impact their health.

“Objective measurements using wearable sensors can inform policies and practices that affect the health and well-being of hundreds of millions of office workers worldwide,” said Casey Lindberg from the UA Institute on Place, Wellbeing and Performance research associate and lead author on the study.

The paper, “Effects of office workstation type on physical activity and stress,” was recently published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, a publication of British Medical Journals.

The full study is available to read here.

What makes us susceptible to burnout?

In this episode  of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.

We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.

stress

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