A work-appropriate 30-day challenge could be anything from 30 days of journaling to 30 days of squats to 30-days of yoga. Challenges help motivate the whole office to engage in something new, build better habits, and care for their physical and emotional wellness. It can take between 18 and 254 days to create a new habit – so sometimes the activity your team practices on a 30-day challenge will end up sticking, and sometimes it won’t – but that isn’t really the point.

Friendly competition, trying new things, and the camaraderie of taking on a challenge will all help boost the mood of everyone in the office. You can increase everyone’s engagement by allowing team members to vote on the next 30-day challenge at the end of every month.

A quiet room may improve morale and productivity if your office is an open plan, semi-open plan, or uses hotdesking. Quiet rooms allow team members to think things through without distraction, practice mindfulness or meditation, pray, or just get away when they feel stressed. Having this area will reduce work stress and improve how your employees feel about their environment.

A green office is better than a lean office. According to multiple studies, having plants in the office improves employee mental health and productivity.

But why not take it a step further? Engaging with plants by caring for them magnifies the existing effects of having greenery in the office. So, ask the cleaners not to water the plants, and work with the team to build a rota or put together a ‘green fingers committee’ to keep the pot plants healthy and develop their gardening skills.

You probably know that yoga and mindfulness are great mental wellness activities. So why not bring them into the office? We often get tied up at work and miss an intended yoga class, don’t get out in time to practice mindfulness before dinner, or skip the gym even though we promised we’d go today.

Everyone can join in with a session if you bring a practitioner into the office at lunchtime. Mindfulness and yoga are some of the most popular, relaxing options, but gym classes, dance classes, or a visiting physio or masseuse would be wonderful for workplace emotional wellness as well.

Autonomy at work increases both mental health and longevity. So why not give employees more autonomy at the same time as building a program for workplace wellness? By encouraging everyone in the office to get involved in workplace organizational groups like a social committee, an events committee, and a mental health team, you are increasing health, happiness, and productivity within your workplace.

Emotional wellness activities can be about helping others as well as ourselves. Like mental health days, volunteer days are a great base for employee benefit, mental health and emotional wellness in the workplace.

Volunteering has been shown to reduce stress and increase happiness. Doing it as a team will also build bonds with colleagues and create positive memories together. You might want to find local charities to focus on or allow suggestions from the team so everyone can share their passions and give back to an organization they really care about.

Poor mental health can be a spiral. Depression is higher in millennials (who make up a large chunk of the workforce) than in the rest of the population. Why not break the cycle by offering no-questions-asked PTO for mental health days? Some businesses have even seen success by insisting everyone takes one or two mental health days a quarter to minimize the stigma around using them.

In a study of firefighters, sharing meals in the workplace increased team performance and acted as ‘social glue.’ Whether you’re fighting fires, shuffling numbers, or working on a hot new startup, social time and shared healthy meals could improve emotional wellness in your workplace.

It’s a chance to showcase favorite foods, share cultures, and explore how a nutritious meal can increase productivity. Choosing one day a week, or just once a month, for a work lunch is a great way to open the door to the community and its mental health benefits. Plus, we have to eat! Making food into an emotional wellness activity means it is folded into the workday.

Just 15 minutes of exercise per day increases lifespan and boosts mental wellness. How long do you and your team spend sitting in meetings? More than 15 minutes per day, I’d wager. So, why not meet and move?

As well as increasing mental health, walking has been shown to boost creativity by up to 100%. If you clarify to the team that this is company policy, you’ll soon find nearby routes to meander as you make moves.

Most companies carry out employee satisfaction surveys. But few do it well. If you carry out a survey, your employees will see it as a promise to act on their concerns. If you don’t, their trust in the company will drop, and so will their emotional wellness at work.

On the other hand, if you make changes based on the feedback, your employees will feel heard, listened to, and happier at work. Consider all this when you design your surveys – don’t ask questions you will ignore, and ask for actionable advice.

You’re more likely to see results when you offer your employees the option to track their emotional wellness activities. And if you offer rewards for progress, it will push the team to actively engage with their personal tracking data and stay on top of building positive new habits.

Remember how helpful a 30-day challenge can be? Tracking positive changes is like an ongoing personal challenge for each team member.

Work doesn’t have to be a chore.

We spend tens of thousands of hours at our jobs throughout our lives – so why not make sure your team feels better rather than worse after a day at the office?

As a leader, implementing emotional wellness activities will deliver you an invigorated workforce, a lower turnover rate, and the recruitment power lent to businesses by a good reputation.

So, what are you waiting for? Contact us to schedule a demo with Advanta Health Solutions today and take the first step towards an emotionally and physically healthy team and a thriving workplace.