Healthy workplace wellness nutritional strategies
How can nature-inspired nutrition help us perform in the workplace?
What lessons can nature teach us about what to eat and drink during our work day in order to boost performance, creativity and concentration levels as part of a healthy building plan?
This is going to come with some caveats because, no matter what anyone tells you, there simply is no one size fits all solution, just as there is no one diet that will be equally suited for everyone on the planet. What we can establish however are some fundamental principles, largely inspired by our evolutionary history.
Opt for a real food diet
There's a general acceptance now that processed foods and refined carbohydrates with long ingredient lists have no place in a healthy, high-performance diet. That includes most cereals, industrially produced bread and biscuits - all of which can feature prominently in Western diet breakfast routines.
Instead, for performance in the workplace we’d do better to shift to what is called a whole food or real food diet, aiming to consume a wide variety of vegetables, fruits and nuts each day as the foundations of our food consumption pyramid.
People and planet considerations in nutrition
If possible, buy locally sourced, in season and non-GMO / organic in origin. That means maximum nutritional benefit for you and minimal impact on the planet. This simple purchasing strategy equates to a healthier gut microbiome and less food miles.
It may also add 20% onto your weekly shopping bill but you’ll notice that it is meat, fish, dairy and alcohol that really pushes the cost up.
Reduce your consumption of those food groups to focus on eating less but of higher quality and the numbers are likely to balance out each week.
Nutritional experimentation to find your energy sweet spot
When we reconsider what fuel our body and mind really need to perform optimally, a little experimentation can go a really long way. First though, you’ll need to drop your preconceptions of ‘fuel’ equating to frequent consumption of carbohydrate sources, be that wheat, oats, potatoes or rice. Those days are gone for those of lucky enough to allow ourselves the luxury of choice.
Upping your intake of nutrient dense fresh vegetables, grains and legumes in a rainbow of colours with modest (i.e. 1-2) portions of low-sugar fruits each day should be ‘ground zero’ for each day’s meal plan, no matter how loosely you interpret the term. To win at your own personal workplace wellness nutrition, this is our basic building block.
From there, we can look to consume foods high in healthy fats such as nuts, seeds , coconut, avocado and whole fat yoghurt as additional ‘substance’ to bulk up the meals.
Those eating meat, fish and cheese can integrate them into the baseline meal plan as well, leaving a relatively modest allocation for complex carbs such as sweet potato, a slice of sourdough bread from time to time, and so on.
Intermittent fasting for cognitive performance
For some, success with intermittent fasting can be a game-changer in productivity terms at work. It’s a remarkably simple nutrition strategy with impressive benefits for both mind and body, plus it is a time-saver - an especially appealing benefit for the perennially ‘busy’ and overworked!
A 16 hours OFF / 8 hours ON (a.k.a “16/8”) approach equates to consuming all of your daily food quota in an eight-hour “eating window”. For example, breakfast, lunch and a snack mid-afternoon before fasting until the following morning. Or lunch, snack and dinner followed by a fast until lunchtime the next day.
Once that becomes easy enough, and you have begun a genuine conversation with yourself about the quantity and timing of food that is actually needed to feel comfortable, you can push it to 18/6, 20/4, 22/2 and eventually a full 24hr fast.
The net results of this are a tangible sense of enhanced mental clarity, a certain lightness in the stomach that proves strangely liberating, and the realisation that three meals a day are optional, so skipping an airport dinner while travelling home one evening really isn’t much of a hardship at all.
When we look back through evolutionary time, having three regular meals a day is a novelty, our genes can handle eating less, in fact we are likely over-eating on occasions, which in turn can result in decreased performance and feelings of tiredness during the work day.
Healthy drinks for wellness nutrition in the workplace or healthy co-working office
If plain filtered water is just not your thing, try fruit-infused water and of course herbal teas while avoiding fruit juices and soft drinks that are high in sugar and low in fiber.
All they do is cause your sugar levels to spike in the short-term, which results in a clash. If you don’t notice that effect in yourself, it likely means you are consuming excessive amounts of sugar! Cut out sugar sources for 10-14 days to take yourself back to neutral then try again.
When you're consuming whole fruit juices, you want the whole fruit, literally, rather than a filtered version of the fruit. If making smoothies or juices at home, always aim to balance fruit with vegetables.
Coffee consumption in the healthy office
Coffee drinkers can take some comfort in knowing that an espresso contains far lower caffeine than filter due to the water-ground beans contact time. As espresso has a shorter contact time of around 25-seconds the beans it’s actually better to drink a number of shots, rather than filter during the day. Strange but true.
Look for recently roasted, fresh beans, ideally with a single origin of the Arabica bean rather than the inferior Robusta bean. Consider that some coffee blends sold in packs in your supermarket could be. 6-12 months old by the time it makes it into your cup whereas buying from a specialist local roaster reduces that timeline to a matter of weeks.
Green Tea & Matcha for mental wellness
The gold standard in workplace health drinks remains, without doubt, lightly brewed green tea, the Chinese and Japanese are well on to the benefits, both short term and long-term. It's a powerhouse for its amino acid profiles and polyphenols, meaning it's good for your brain, and it's cleansing for your gut biome as well.
Researchers believe ROS and oxidative stress play a significant role in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, contributing to neuronal damage in other words. Antioxidant catechins may help to protect against these diseases, a theory supported by preliminary animal studies of EGCG.[4]
Research studies also show that a polyphenol rich diet can have a positive impact on preventing memory impairment associated with age-related disease such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Our daily regime includes blueberries and a green tea supplement for their combined polyphenol power, for this very reason. [4]
For more on green tea see our article here on the Biofit website.
Biohacking in the workplace
If your energy, productivity and focus are not where you want them to be the first thing is to look at how your sleep, diet and exercise are dialled in, with sleep being arguably the most important of all!
Natural nootropics are a way for you to perhaps enhance your cognitive performance or work just a little bit more effectively thanks to their mental focus benefits. They're all about boosting feelings of positivity and wellbeing while reducing anxiety levels.
Look for Gingko Biloba, Ginseng, Ashwagandha, Bacopa Monnieri… all easy to find in a health food store or shop around online. You've got L-theanine which is an extraction from that wonderful green tea again, it serves to reduce the jitters of consuming caffeine as an interesting side-effect!
Medicinal mushrooms such as Reishi, Lion's Mane and Cordyceps are all worthy additions to a ‘stack’ of daily nootropics with a workplace wellness orientation.
It's all entirely natural a little experimentation can really go a long way when it comes to playing with how nature can can help you in your workplace performance.
For more information on the nourishment section of the WELL Building Standard, the healthy building reference, see here.