Mental wellbeing in healthy buildings
What is mental wellbeing in a healthy building and how do healthy building consultants integrate concerns for the occupant mental wellbeing into our work?
A mental wellbeing plan for a healthy building combines wellness interior design, operations and HR team engagement.
Our healthy building consultant deliverables might include organizing educational courses on mental wellbeing, mindfulness training, restorative spaces such as a recharge room, nap pods, biophilic design in the interiors and ensuring access to an outdoor nature space.
transparency and communication around mental wellbeing
The days of ignoring mental health issues in the workplace and learning environments are gone, during Covid a whole plethora of new risks emerged but at the very least it brought this subject into the open, one that the healthy buildings movement had been pushing for.
How can an HR team respond? At the very least by introducing educational content, be that an informative email, access to a virtual presentation or an annual training course focused on mental wellbeing topics such as the importance of rest and recovery or the benefits of mindfulness practice. Healthy workplace working hour policies may also be a useful step in some work cultures where quantity is valued more than quality.
MIND concept in WELL Standard
A complete healthy building plan considers both the physical wellbeing of the building occupants as well as their mental wellbeing. As healthy building consultants we can leverage environmental psychology to create interior spaces that promote certain responses, a fundamental idea behind behind biophilic design, but as the WELL certification standard suggests we also need to factor in access to nature indoors (or outdoors, nearby), mental health support, restorative spaces such as recharge rooms, restorative opportunities and restorative programming, as well as sleep support. Read on to find out more.
Enhanced access to nature / connection to nature & place
Bringing the outside world in is the basis of biophilic design, this can happen via direct biophilia (living nature) or indirect biophilia (representations of nature). The former uses live plants, indoor gardens, living walls, plant dividers, hanging plants from the ceiling, as well as natural daylight and water features.
Indirect biophilia meanwhile is about evoking that same, positive response via the use of natural materials, shapes, patterns, textures, colours, sculptures, artworks, sounds and scents in an interior design. An extra layer of meaning can be incorporated through references to local culture and heritage, providing ‘a sense of place’.
Why is this a valuable concept in an office interiors or residential development context for example? Exposure to nature and place has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety, restore concentration, while boosting feelings of vitality, purpose and community (see in-depth research into biophilia’s benefits here) . ‘Enhanced access to nature’ is Feature 9 of the WELL V2 building standard MIND concept while Connection to Nature & Place is Feature 2.
Restorative programming
The provision of ongoing programming for healthy building occupants ensures there is regular access to mind-body practices such as mindfulness, more relaxing forms of yoga such as yin or yoga nidra, and/or guided meditation sessions as a way to counterbalance the potential mental stress of work. A worker suffering from anxiety is going to be less productive and quite simply less happy, ergo ‘unhealthy’ from a mental wellbeing perspective.
For the purposes of the WELL healthy building standard MIND Concept / Feature 08, these restorative classes can be delivered either in-person or online, meaning access to a carefully chosen app can potentially do the job, although consideration will still be needed for a suitably private location within the office building for that to take place. See Yinshi meditation pods, for example.
Restorative spaces & recharge rooms
We have applied biophilic design to a number of restorative spaces in office environments in the past (see here) and have written a short guide to the WELL healthy building standard’s MIND feature V07 here. The specific aim here is to create a designated space available to all regular occupants of the workplace that promotes mental wellbeing by reducing stress and restores concentration levels. This can be achieved through a combination of indoor plants / biophilia, wellness lighting, air purification, multi-sensory design, acoustic comfort and thermal comfort as well as suitable furniture options.
restorative opportunities
Ensuring employees and students follow a healthy working hours policy is a long-term approach to avoid burnout while a nap policy is arguably one of the single greatest contributions to a productive work day any employer or learning environment can make.
The WELL healthy building standard Mind Concept Feature 6 has recommendations around minimum consecutive hours off in a 24-hour period (11) and 7-day period (24), as well as a block on work related communications outside of working hours for those not involved in shift work.
Napping for up to 30-minutes during a work day can in fact be a massive productivity booster and far healthier than another coffee or chocolate bar - for this a designated ‘quiet room’ is needed, preferably with furniture on which to recline in comfort.
stress management plan
An adequate stress management plan in a healthy building project will consider issues such as 50-hr or more work weeks, monitor absenteeism, employee retention, staff survey responses and even not using allocated time off, all of which become inputs in an attempt to identify staff who are under, or putting themselves under, unnecessary amounts of stress that in turn negatively impacts their wellbeing.
The work environment itself can be more or less conducive to stress management, as can company culture; by engaging staff in decisions around both of these issues, they can feel empowered to speak up before an issue spirals out of control.
External mental health professionals
Access to a clinical screening or self-assessment screening tool for staff or students would ideally cover stress, depression and anxiety primarily, as well as substance abuse.
Having a mental health professional available outside of the organization is essential for this, meaning a chosen Mental Health Champion inside the organization is in no way responsible for giving out advice for which they will be ill equipped. Their role is simply communicating the availability of such mental health services to all possible stakeholders.
A healthy building plan only needs to go so far here, it is the mental wellbeing professionals who provide the expert guidance when necessary. This is Feature 3 of the WELL healthy building standard’s MIND Concept.
nutrition for mental wellbeing in a healthy building
The connection between mental health and nutrition in a healthy building plan may not be immediately obvious but having adequate food prep areas and cold storage space in a kitchen can help promote mindful eating in a communal environment. A regular ritual of a shared dining experience with colleagues, consuming a healthy meal made with fresh, locally sourced ingredients helps promote a sense of belonging and happiness.
Various healthy building certification systems provide a guide to nutrition-based health and design strategies. The WELL Building Standard contains an entire Concept, ‘Nourishment’ that discusses the importance of healthy diets and how our environments can promote this goal, as well as a Tobacco Cessation feature in the MIND Concept.
