Happier by moving more? 6 tips for healthy and active breaks.

That work happiness and healthy eating at work are closely related, you could already read in our blog post on Work Happiness Week. Healthy snacks can contribute greatly to employees' overall well-being, but exercise can also make work happiness soar.

Move!

 

Regular exercise makes people happy. The proof? Just go for a brisk walk after a hard day's work, you'll feel the tension slip right off. Or just look around the park or forest on the weekend, the walking, biking, hiking, stepping ... there invariably full of happy, relaxed, exercising people.

All kidding aside. The fact is that regular, daily exercise is relaxing and, by the way, it boosts the immune system. Daily 30 minutes of exercise can significantly improve your resistance, it also lowers blood pressure, improves digestion, gives your brain the oxygen it needs....

Scientific studies have made the connection between physical fitness and the shortened duration of a cold. For that alone, a person would exercise more, right!

In our blog post on what breaks do to your brain, we previously went into detail about the importance of regular breaks to give your brain the much-needed rest so you can get back to full concentration after your break.

But regular healthy breaks do more than give your brain that rest. It can significantly increase employee job happiness, especially if employees are also encouraged to exercise more during those healthy breaks. Employees today are under increasing work pressure, experience a lot of stress and feel tired, and this can be greatly improved through real, restful breaks away from their screens and desks.

Social aspect

The social aspect also plays a major role in the level of job satisfaction of employees. Being able to make friends at work and socialize with colleagues makes employees significantly happier and more engaged. Moreover, it will improve the overall work atmosphere because employees feel more connected to each other.

If employees are able to socialize with colleagues during their break and exercise in the meantime, as an employer you can kill two birds with one stone. Stress levels will drop significantly, as will absenteeism, and employees will become happier and stronger.

But there is still work to be done to stimulate healthy breaks, because the National Happiness Survey unfortunately shows that 1 in 3 Belgians do not get up from his/her chair during the lunch break and quickly gobble down lunch from behind the screen while surfing. Worse, some 15% don't even take a lunch break at all.

This is where you as an employer can make the difference in making your employees happier. By encouraging them to take regular breaks, exercise at appropriate times and offering them healthy food and healthy snacks, you give them all the tools to send work happiness to unprecedented heights, because healthy employees are happy employees.

Mind shift

How can you encourage your employees to exercise more throughout the day? First, a mindset shift is in order. Too often employers still perceive break times and small talk between colleagues as wasted work time. It is important to realize that employees are much more productive after a break and often feel much happier and connected after a chat with a colleague, which will often make them go that extra mile for their company.

Getting your employees to snack healthily and exercise more often doesn't require making big changes. Having a chat together and getting some fresh air is the easiest way and, moreover, so easy comme bonjour.

Would you like to go a step further and ensure that exercise becomes an integral part of the corporate culture? We'd like to give you some tips.

6 practical tips to get your employees to move more

1. Awareness: encourage your employees to take their happiness (and their health) into their own hands. Give them all the information they need to make healthy choices in terms of nutrition, exercise and fitness. During our Lunch & Learn workshops, for example, employees learn all about healthy breaks. Or invite a guest speaker who can teach employees all about chair yoga, so they can really move throughout the day.

3. Facilitate: Perhaps there is a colleague who knows a yoga or pilates instructor who would be happy to come and give sessions in the afternoon? Make a room available where colleagues can exercise together, provide decent bicycle parking, invest in a good table tennis table or foosball set....
Make sure that exercise becomes easy and that practical objections cannot put a damper on the joy of exercise.

4. Awaken the competitive spirit: some people need some healthy competition for motivation. Therefore, hang a scoreboard in the lunch room with the scores of the latest table tennis derby between the HR department and the Purchasing department. Organize regular playful tournaments and reward the winner with a challenge cup that can show off on his or her desk until the next tournament. Definitely encourage employees to come up with initiatives, it only fuels the team spirit even more!

5. Far away: put healthy snacks and snacks in a strategic location. You want to offer your employees healthy snacks and get them off their seats at the same time? Then don't put your snack boxes in the office garden, but in a kitchenette on the other side of the building, preferably a few floors up or down, so that your employees can really stretch their legs.

6. Digi-detox: No greater killjoy than the eternal distraction of our smartphones and gadgets. Put those smartphones aside and reconnect with your colleagues. Does this require some adjustment and do you want to do this in a playful way? Put the smartphones in a cage so no one is tempted anymore and play a game of office ping-pong while doing so.

Encourage and motivate your employees to exercise and make exercise and healthy breaks a habit. Work happiness is already smiling upon you!