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Why Your Coffee Addiction is Your Healthiest Habit (Or, How to Drink Caffeine Like a Scientist)

coffee addiction Colorful Rocks

We love coffee, so we decided to offer you a little wisdom about this surprisingly healthful beverage. Coffee actually boasts a longer and more diverse list of health benefits than most superfoods, which is great news for the 54% of Americans adults who consume at least one cup a day. Below you will find a rundown of the not-so-obvious ways that coffee is good — one might even say great — for your health.

Below that are some additional tips for the best way to imbibe your caffeine, no matter your preferred source beverage (we didn’t forget you, tea and soda drinkers of the world!). It turns out that a bunch of the ways we normally consume caffeine (e.g. first thing in the morning) are actually the scientifically worst ways to do so, minimizing its effectiveness and increasing the likelihood that you’ll become a bona fide caffeine addict.

We’re the discount specialists here, so it’s important to us that you are getting the biggest bang for your caffeine buck.

coffee addiction Desk Plant

I. Coffee is the Workplace Super-Beverage

All the Antioxidants.

Nothing else comes close” to providing as many antioxidants in the American diet. In terms of antioxidants per serving, coffee “easily outranks” other popular sources like tea, chocolate, and cranberries. Coffee beans are particularly rich in disease-combatting quinines, which actually become more potent after roasting — dark roast fans rejoice!

Technically: Dates trump coffee for antioxidants per serving, but we thought it’d be easier to write a piece about why that drink you love is really awesome, rather than try to convince you to start eating dates on the daily.

Stress-Free Scent.

The simple aroma of coffee is shown to reduce stress stemming from sleep deprivation. An international group of scientists linked exposure to the scent off coffee with the boosted expression of genes and brain proteins that protect nerve cells from stress-related damage. This is a big one considering that 84% of Americans report under sleeping at least once a week.

Best for Your Brain.

People who consume 3-5 cups of coffee a day in adulthood are observed with a 65% decreased risk of developing dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Coffee may decrease risk of Parkinson’s disease, and now this recent study finds that 2-4 cups of coffee a day can reduce movement-related symptoms in Parkinson’s patients.

Tea drinkers: There is some scientific evidence to suggest that tea has similarly favorable effects against cognitive decline, but the results are less consistent and less pronounced.

Your Liver Loves It.

A 22-year longitudinal study found that the risk of developing alcoholic liver cirrhosis decreased by 22% with each cup of coffee subjects drank per day. 1-4 daily cups of coffee are also demonstrated — although with less pronounced results — to help prevent other types of cirrhosis and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

10% Happier.

Coffee fanatics (think 4 cups a day) are 10% less likely to be depressed than those who don’t drink coffee. This finding holds true for both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee. Other studies suggest similar mood boosting effects for a more moderate 2-3 cups.

Take note: Sugary beverages — particularly soft drinks — have a higher risk of depression. For the best coffee-induced mood boost, we recommend drinking it unsweetened. (Your cavity-free teeth will be happier too!)

coffee addiction Colored Pencils

II. Don’t Drink Your Caffeine Like A Rookie

Cortisol Control.

If you’re like most of us, you probably have your first (or second or third) caffeinated beverage within an hour of waking up. This is basically the worst possible time to drink your caffeine. Our bodies run on a 24-hour hormonal cycle called the circadian clock. In the morning, our bodies to naturally release cortisol, a hormone that makes us feel alert and awake. If you typically wake up between 6am and 8am, peak cortisol production lasts until about 9am.

Don’t drink caffeine during peak cortisol production.

Cortisol not only reduces the effects of caffeine, but also spurs your body to build up a caffeine tolerance. The more often you consume caffeine during peak cortisol production, the more likely you are to become dependent on caffeine just to feel awake. So when should you drink it? Science says between 9:30am – 11am and 1:30pm – 5pm.

Slow and Steady.

Research suggests that small, frequent doses are the most effective way to consume caffeine. Caffeine peaks in the body between 30 and 60 minutes after consumption. Harvard Medical School researchers found that an hourly dose of 25-100mg with a daily maximum intake of 400mg is the optimal method for maximizing caffeine’s stimulant effects without experiencing the dreaded 3pm crash. (For reference: one cup of coffee typically contains about 100mg of caffeine.)

Learn more and test your knowledge with this Caffeine Quiz.

Getting Personal with Personality

should hr use personality tests

According to SHRM, about 60 percent of workers are now asked to take workplace assessments. These personality tests help boost understanding and improve collaboration among teams. We do the same here at PerkSpot, but a recent colleague brought to my attention that specific personalities don’t always dictate how you work. Using her as an example, Alissa is an introvert through and through. However, when it comes to her work, she enjoys building relationships with new people and engaging with clients over the phone and in person. Being an account manager is not a typical role for most introverts, but Alissa shared how this experience has been challenging and rewarding, while also being a natural fit for her. Perhaps you’ve experienced something similar within your own organization. Maybe an extrovert is great at crunching numbers and heads-down work, while your introverts thrive in sales roles.

Does this mean we are overestimating the power of personality? Should we allow personality tests to dictate how we collaborate on projects? Are they still valuable to the hiring process?

Mixed Reviews

Some of the most common tests include Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, StrengthsFinder and DiSC. HR professionals hold mixed views about the accuracy of personality assessments and how seriously we take the findings. Some of the positive results include gaining a deeper understanding of a candidate’s (or colleague’s) strengths and weaknesses, their communication styles, and how these play into their overall role within their team. While personality tests are great at viewing commonalities among personalities, but remember that these tests should be taken in broad scope, just as you would a horoscope. The flip side is that they often don’t take into consideration motives, values or even working styles. The way a person interacts inside the office could be very different from how they function socially. It will take more than a piece of paper to prove that.

Get Personal with Personality

If you’re on the fence about whether a personality test might be right for your team or as a new addition to your hiring process, consider what other pieces of the puzzle might be missing. Personality tests are great, but they cannot stand alone as a tool for assessing candidates. When hiring, look for candidates who not only fulfill your requirements, but also add value. When assessing a team member, use personality tests alongside other team building exercises to understand how each person functions on an individual level. The key is to get personal with personality and treat each person as an individual, not an answer to a quiz.

Do you currently use personality tests in your hiring process or among your team? Share your experience in the comments.

The Sweet Sound of Productivity

music & productivity

Music & Productivity are a match made in heaven. One of the best things about PerkSpot is that we have music bouncing off the walls all day long.

However, we know that all music is not created equally. There are the rock jams that get us pumped up, the pop songs that the whole team can sing along, and the mellow acoustics that relax us at the end of the day. Here are a few tips for curating the perfect sounds for your day.

When X + Y = Zzzzzz

Crunching numbers is a part of almost every person’s job description at some point. To keep yourself awake, the best tunes for your intimate time with Excel are pop songs. So whether you’re into old-school Abba or have Bieber fever, pump up the pop jams to get your fingers and your mind flowing.

When you spill your coffee, forget your notebook, and get stuck in traffic…

Mornings can sometimes be the enemy. A personal favorite and a sure-fire bad-mood buster is Reggae. Nothing will help you forget the stresses of the day like being transported to a tropical island.

When Photoshop is your friend…

For the creative minds, we’ve got just the trick. Ambient or electronic music is what the doctor ordered to make you your best creative self.

When you’re tired of hearing the same playlist…

Generally speaking, a good rule-of-thumb is to choose songs with minimal lyrics. Here at PerkSpot, we’ll play jazz, blues, or even music in a different language because the lyrics tend to be less-distracting than your typical mainstream artists.

Music isn’t the only perk that helps improve productivity. Help your employees be more productive with exclusive discounts through PerkSpot!

Crush the Afternoon Slump by Daydreaming, Reading a Novel

Your high-energy, high-output morning feels like a distant memory, and the end of your workday seems about a week away. That third cup of coffee is wearing off and you’re debating whether your stomach can handle a fourth. We’ve all been there — the afternoon slump — and we’ll all be there again. Some of us may even be reading this blog post in the midst of a 3 pm productivity tailspin.
If your afternoons are often more of an uphill battle than a victory lap, we’ve got news for you.

afternoon slump Mountain Lake

The bad:

The afternoon slump is more than just a marketing ploy. It’s not an attempt to sell you alien-shaped-sleep-at-your-desk pillows or productivity-boosting facial spray. The afternoon slump is very real. In fact, it’s a natural part of how the human brain works, and it’s pretty much unavoidable.

The good:

Because we understand the brain mechanism that contributes to the afternoon slump, we also understand how to mediate its effects. Below is a quick summary of the relevant research. Plus, we’ve included a few activities you can do at lunchtime or for a quick break to power past your PM lethargy.

afternoon slump Lightbulb

The science:

Researchers at the University of Illinois conducted a study to determine what actually happens in your brain when you suddenly find it difficult to maintain focus after an extended period of work. The study measured groups of participants’ performance on a series of hour-long computer tasks. One group took two short breaks during the tasks, while the other took none. The only participants that exhibited no decline in performance over time were in the group taking the breaks.
The study results confirmed researchers’ hypothesis that the human brain’s ability to maintain constant focus eventually plateaus and then declines. It’s like how you notice a distinct smell when you first walk into a room but cannot smell it after half an hour. The results also confirmed their idea that the brain naturally revs up when one shifts focus.
Taken together, these findings suggest that a 5- to 10-minute break during a project requiring hours of sustained effort can naturally reinvigorate your ability to focus and promote maximum productivity.

Here are three of our favorite break-time activities to give your focus a chance to recharge and, according to science, enhance your brain function:

1. Daydreaming makes you a better problem solver.

Studies show that stepping away from a difficult project to do an unrelated and easy activity makes you more creative when you get back to work.

The evidence: This UC Santa Barbara study found that mind wandering boosts creative problem-solving skills. Subjects performed an Unusual Uses Task (UUT) — a traditional psychological measure where one lists as many uses for certain objects as possible. After the UUT, subjects engaged in either a cognitively demanding or undemanding task. Neuroscientists measured the subjects’ levels of mind wandering during these tasks, and found that those performing the undemanding task exhibited a much greater tendency to let their minds roam. All subjects then performed another UUT. Guess which group of subjects showed dramatic improvement in their second UUT? Yup, the daydreamers.

afternoon slump Colored Pencils

2. A 10-20 minute power nap between 1-3pm is better than a cup of coffee.

By timing it right, a short nap immediately recharges your brain’s ability to focus. Even better, it all happens without the subsequent drop in energy when the caffeine buzz wears off.

The evidence: A 2006 study on nap duration found that 10 up to 20 minutes is the ideal length of time for a power nap. Nappers who slept for more than 20 and up to 60 minutes exhibited sleep inertia for half an hour after they awoke. What is sleep inertia? It’s the scientific term for the grogginess you feel immediately after rising, and it’s definitively proven to seriously impair cognitive performance. A nap shorter than 20 minutes keeps your body from falling into the deeper levels of sleep known as slow-wave and REM sleep (the types of sleep that produce sleep inertia). Naps of this length are known to replenish attention and strengthen working memory.

3. Reading a novel makes you less stressed and happier.

Engaging with fiction tricks your brain into believing it’s in another world. In so doing, it relaxes you and strengthens your ability to empathize with others’ points of view.

The evidence: Numerous surveys comparing readers and non-readers — such as this one by Quick Reads and the University of Liverpool — find that people who read as little as 30 minutes per week experience less feelings of stress and depression, report 20% greater life satisfaction, and are better equipped to deal with difficult and unexpected situations. Neurological research has actually documented changes in brain connectivity as a result of novel reading and suggests that these changes enhance one’s ability to adopt other perspectives.

Workspace Psychology 101: Boost Your Mood, Motivation, and Productivity

Even with the rapid growth of the freelancer economy and the increasing appeal of shared coworking spaces, the majority of us still work out of a single, personal workstation. It’s no secret that our surroundings — both indoor and outdoor — continually impact our psychological well-being and cognitive function. Everything from color design to your distance from the nearest window has a measurable effect on your mood and productivity.

Workspace Psychology Colorful Rocks

Not everyone can move to a corner office or ask their boss for a custom built ergonomic workstation. So, we rounded up a few scientifically proven ways you can optimize your workspace. That way, you can keep your spirits high and your output in peak form.

Take charge of your decor.

The extent to which different people can personalize their workspace certainly varies. For some, it may be limited to the addition of a few framed photos. While others may have control over their surrounding paint color, adjustable lighting, etc. Regardless, research shows that exercising your maximum degree of influence over your workspace design is beneficial for your motivation and productivity.

Multiple studies led by Craig Knight at the University of Exeter measured workers’ mood and efficiency in varying levels of personalized workspaces in several industries. Self-reported surveys found that the more control people were given over their surroundings, the more engaged they were with their job and the more they identified with their employer. Two additional studies compared workers’ abilities to complete tasks in workspaces categorized as lean (bare and functional), enriched (decorated with plants and photos), and empowered (individuals allowed to design their area). People working in enriched spaces were 17% more productive than those in lean spaces, while their empowered counterparts were a whopping 32% more productive.

Workspace Psychology Desk Plant

There’s no such thing as too much nature.

Indoor plants are perhaps the single best investment you can make in your workspace. Research overwhelmingly shows that office plants help workers recover from demanding activities, decrease stress, and even reduce office air pollution.

Here is a guide to desk plants that thrive in indoor office environments.

Here is a graphic of the best air-cleaning plants, according to NASA.

Curves are more relaxing than right angles.

There is a long history of scientific literature demonstrating the relationship between positive emotional responses and rounded shapes in design and architecture. More recent studies find this relationship extends to furniture and objects in our immediate surroundings.

A recent study led by Sibel Dazkir at Oregon State University looked at participants’ responses to four interior settings with varying degrees of rounded and hard-edged furniture. The two settings with a higher concentration of curves were significantly more inviting to participants and elicited higher amounts of pleasant-unarousing emotions (feeling relaxed, peaceful, and calm).

If possible, opt for a desk and chair that emphasize curves to foster tranquility in your workspace. If not, surround yourself with smaller objects that highlight fluid forms. For ideas, try adding a desk lamp, coffee mug, or potted plant.

Workspace Psychology Colored Pencils

Clutter promotes creativity.

Some appreciate the value of a tidy, organized desk. But others feel more at home amidst stacks of loose paper peppered with stray binder clips. Messy workspaces are strongly associated with enhanced creativity and more novel ideas.

This intriguing study led by Kathleen Vohs at the University of Minnesota confirmed the clutter-creativity connection. However, it also found  participants in tidier workspaces were more likely to choose healthy snack options. The study finds that people in more orderly workstations are more likely to do what was expected of them. These findings suggest that levels of workspace organization and disorder influence and might even optimize the efficiency of one’s job. For example, a business analyst will likely prefer a more robust organizational structure than the in-house graphic designer.

Color affects cognition.

All colors and light levels have different psychological effects, so choose your colors and desk lighting accordingly. In a 2009 study, Ravi Mehta and Rui Zhu used a series of six computer-based activities to evaluate how red and blue affect cognition. Red facilitates greater attention to detail. Blue encourages exploration and creativity. Green promotes idea generation. Discover what mode of cognition your job requires the most, or what mode of cognition you feel comes least naturally to you. Then, try to work the relevant cognition-boosting color into your workspace.

Vacation: How to Digital Detox Without Going Off-Grid

Vacation is for unplugging — right? According to this recent study, maybe not. Cloud networking company Pertino found that 59% of Americans check email and take work calls while on vacation. 35% even haul a hefty stack of their physical work files when they travel.

digital detox Umbrellas and Lanterns

Many of us travel with electronic devices but insist that we will only use them in case of emergency. Are we the victims of wishful thinking? This meQuilibrium survey found that 61% of us check our devices within an hour of an alert — email, text, social media, or otherwise. A colossal 73% report that their devices contribute to stress in their lives.

Americans are apparently not very good at unplugging, but this isn’t entirely our fault. It is increasingly difficult to find a destination without cellular coverage or internet access. One can now enjoy wifi hotspots on Mount Fuji and the backs of Israeli donkeys.

Social technology expert Alexandra Samuel suggests asking this question when planning your vacation: what’s the least amount of work connectivity I can get away with? Most of us can’t afford and/or lack the immense willpower to take a 25-day-no-exceptions-internet-hiatus. Answering this question will allow us to make a healthy break from technology without severing all lines of communication.

digital detox Hiking

Understanding the difference between your peers’ expectations and your own anxiety is key. Do you fear being out of the loop because your job depends on your ability to respond to every email ASAP, or do you simply strive for the proverbial Inbox Zero?

If you have upcoming travel plans but are anxious about powering down your devices, follow these tips for how to unplug without becoming disconnected:

Set shared expectations about tech use.

With your travel companions, make a list of the specific ways you want to use each of your devices and a schedule with time limits for each of your approved uses. You may agree that it’s okay to peruse email for 15 minutes at breakfast, but only acceptable to call into work in the event of a client emergency.

Have a smart out-of-office reply.

Include a secondary contact that your correspondents can reach if they need to, and let them know that you may not review every message you receive while traveling. Ask them to email you again if you don’t write back by X date after you return.

Buy a paperback.

Sure, e-readers are great, but chances are you won’t actually read more than a book or two while on vacation. Take this opportunity to enhance your memory with some deep reading and give your eyes a break from another screen.

Disable notifications.

They will only make it harder to stick with your technology schedule. Here are guides for turning off notifications on Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows.

Designate a gatekeeper.

Choose somebody you trust who has a strong understanding of your job, most likely your manager or a close peer. Set up a vacation email account and provide only them with the address. Now you can stay apprised of anything seriously urgent without having to sift through all of your other communications in your daily work inbox.

Plan ahead for reentry.

Make a list of all your open projects, where you’ve left off, and what needs to be done while you’re away. Whoever is standing in for you can track progress more effectively. Plus, you can hit the ground running when you return.

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Best Friends Forever from 9-5

work friendships blockheads

Is your coworker also your close friend? Or is your close friend also your coworker?

Office friendships can be a great source of pleasure and support, but they can also be a challenge to navigate. Many have ambivalence toward forming deeper friendships with their colleagues for a number of reasons. Perhaps they worry about the potential for distraction, influence on decision making, or awkwardness during performance reviews. Despite these legitimate concerns, research on workplace friendships suggests they are crucial to both personal health and organizational success.

Friendships Alleviate Stress

In a breakthrough 1995 study, Christine Riordan and Rodger Griffeth found even the possibility of friendship formation increases both job satisfaction and organizational effectiveness. This finding takes on particular importance when considering that in 2014, 80% of Americans stressed over at least one thing at work. Furthermore, a 2013 Lifeboat report found a whopping three-quarters of Americans are not truly satisfied with their friendships. By more than 2:1, respondents said they would prefer a smaller number of deeper friendships to a greater number of friends. Given the increasing blur between work and home life, the office seems like a promising place to form deep friendships.

Friendships Foster Loyalty

In a recent post for Harvard Business Review, Riordan asserts that office friendships foster group loyalty. This, in turn, leads to shared commitment and discipline toward one’s work. Similarly, a 2012 Gallup report found that 50% of employees with a best friend at work felt a strong connection with their company. Meanwhile, only 10% felt this connection without one. In fact, “good relationship with coworkers” was the most frequently cited reason in a 2013 survey for 2,223 people planning to stay in their current job. Three studies by workforce intelligence company Evolv found employees referred by friends are less likely to quit and more productive.  Consequently, employees trained in a “friendly” culture stayed with their employer twice as long as those who were not.

friendly statue

Friendships Improve Performance

In “The Best Place to Work,” psychologist Ron Friedman asserts that having close friends at work brings with it a number of benefits, like combating loneliness. Prolonged loneliness makes it more difficult for people to relax and fall asleep. In turn, this can lead to diminished cognitive function such as impaired memory formation and learning ability. Surrounded by friends means spending less time worrying about fitting in and pay more attention to our work. Personal connections between colleagues also boost motivation, because poor performance at work means letting down friends.

Friendships are not the only way to enhance productivity or boost engagement in the workplace. However, friendships are unique because their strength endures, and even grows when other standard retention incentives wane in a bad economy. Friends are an invaluable resource in the workplace. They provide an emotional support system and a network for helping to more efficiently execute one’s job. Friedman acknowledges making new friends can be scary because of the shared risk involved in disclosing personal details with an acquaintance. That being said, the above trends should encourage anyone who is hesitant about opening up to coworkers. The message is clear: a little vulnerability in the break room can go a long way.

PerkSpot Cubs Game

PerkSpot takes an afternoon off for a Cubs game.

Seven Tips for Optimizing Your Sleep Strategy

It’s 9 pm on Tuesday. You had a great day at work and an even better session at the gym. You made it home in time to cook a healthy dinner instead of picking up from the Thai place around the corner. It’s been too long since you did any pleasure reading and you’re looking forward to cracking open that new novel for a while before getting to bed early.

It’s now 12:43 am. The only light in your bedroom is the pale glow of your laptop.  Your contacts are drying up because you haven’t blinked much in the last two hours. You only read four pages, but you did add thirty-odd titles to your Netflix queue and viewed every last one of your best friend’s Facebook photos in reverse chronological order.

You’re not alone.

sleep strategy counting sheep

 

In June 2014, researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands coined the term “bedtime procrastination” in their study of why people often fail to go to sleep at their intended time despite the absence of external circumstances preventing them from doing so. 84% of the sample reported feeling that they slept too little at least once a week. 30% reported sleeping 6 hours or less on weeknights — far less than the 7 to 9 hours recommended by the National Sleep Foundation. A recent Gallup poll found that Americans currently average 6.8 hours of sleep a night. 40% sleep less than 7 hours a night. In the 1940s, this number was only 11%.

The ongoing trend in 21st-century sleepiness is particularly alarming because sleep is as essential to physical and mental health as oxygen and water. During sleep, your body repairs and restores itself on the cellular level. Sleep is also critical for allowing the brain to embed the things we’ve learned and experienced throughout the day.

sleep strategy laptop glow

The Science of Sleep

It should come as no surprise, then, that excessive sleepiness is linked to slow thought processing and diminished capacity to assess information, resulting in compromised problem-solving skills, impaired judgment, and decreased productivity in the workplace. Longterm lack of sleep is known to increase one’s risk for a myriad of health problems including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, mood disorders, weakened immune function, and risk for alcohol abuse. Poor sleep quality is also linked to longterm loss of grey matter, which makes up brain regions responsible for muscle control, sensory perception, memory, and decision making.

If you often find yourself inexplicably awake during the wee hours, psychologist Ron Friedman suggests doing a “nighttime audit” of how you spend your time after work. Simply log everything that happens from the moment you head home until you go to bed. After a few evenings, evaluate your data: why don’t you get to sleep at your desired time? Are you out late for social plans? Taking care of unfinished tasks? Perhaps you just enjoy the personal time and the world feels calmest several hours after the sun goes down.

Once you identify your motivation for staying awake later, see if you can find some activities in your post-work routine that doesn’t further your goals, and reduce time spent on these. If you stay up late to read but record that you spend 1.5 hours per evening texting and video chatting with friends, see if you can limit that time to 45 minutes and/or set a firm deadline in your evening when you will unplug from your communication devices. You may find it helpful to set a reminder when it is time to power down for the night.

sleep strategy alarm clock

Time management isn’t always the main obstacle for the chronically under-slept. Sometimes we simply don’t feel tired even when we know we should. If you don’t struggle to get under the sheets in time for 7-9 hours of shuteye, here are some tips that may help you fall asleep.

Minimize blue light exposure:

All of our screens emit blue light. Exposure to these blue wavelengths suppresses our natural production of melatonin, a hormone that makes us feel sleepy. Studies have found that using amber tinted blue-blocking glasses can counter this effect and create a “physiological darkness” that improves sleep quality and mood.

Use bright light to your advantage:

Avoid bright light in the evening and expose yourself to sunlight when you wake up in the morning. This will help your body maintain its circadian rhythms and balance your sleep cycle.

Avoid eating 3 hours before sleep:

Dr. Jamie Koufman notes that working adults’ eating habits are becoming increasingly worse for sleep health. Many adults don’t eat much throughout the day. They cram in one huge meal in the late evening due to long work hours and further delays caused by shopping and exercise. A healthy adult body takes several hours to empty the stomach. Going to sleep before this process completes often leads to acid reflux, indigestion, and heartburn. Prolonged reflux disease can increase one’s risk for esophageal cancer.

If you must eat before bed, try these:

A growling stomach can make it just as difficult to fall asleep as acid reflux. Rather than starve yourself, check out the National Sleep Foundation’s list of bedtime-appropriate snacks.

Regulate your caffeine intake:

Although you may only feel its effects for a short period right after you drink it, caffeine has a half-life of 5.3 to 5.7 hours. This means that nearly 6 hours after you have a cup of coffee, half of its caffeine is still present in your body. Ingesting 200mg of caffeine — the equivalent of 16oz of coffee — in the early evening is shown to reduce sleep efficiency and disrupt the natural stages of sleep. If you routinely drink coffee near the end of the day, consider switching to tea.

Exercise promotes efficient sleep:

Moderate to vigorous exercise for 150 minutes per week is shown to improve sleep quality up to 65%. Participants in this study also reported feeling less tired during the day than their less active counterparts even when they slept the same amount the night before.

Turn down the thermostat:

The National Sleep Foundation recommends 60-67 degrees for the optimal sleep temperature. Your body decreases its temperature to initiate sleep, so you will fall asleep more easily in a cooler environment.

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Why Practicing Altruism Will Make You (and Everyone You Know) Happier

altruism

We recently published a piece explaining how happiness promotes productivity and highlighted several cost-effective perks for employers to boost employee happiness. Similarly, employers can also harness empathy and altruism to increase happiness in the workplace.

What are Empathy and Altruism?

Simply put, empathy is the ability to recognize, understand, and share the feelings of another person. Altruism is the selfless concern for the well-being of others. While two distinct social phenomena, empathy and altruism relate when put into the context of the 21st-century workplace. Both behaviors fall under the idea of “positive affect” and “companionate love”.  Researchers employ these traits when investigating the implications of positive emotions in the office.

Empathy and Altruism in the Workplace

Empathy and altruism in the workplace foster greater levels of office camaraderie and encourage employees to make more selfless choices. A study at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that altruists are more likely to be committed to their work and less likely to quit their jobs. Examining the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which surveys 10,000 Wisconsin high school graduates from the class of 1957, researchers demonstrated that those who routinely help others are happier than those who do not.

altruism collaboration

A recent Catalyst study led by Jeanine Prime and Elizabeth Salib found a positive association between selfless acts by managers and increased innovation by employees. Furthermore, employees who observe altruistic behavior in their leaders are more likely to feel included in their work teams and engage in team citizenship behavior, such as picking up slack for an absent colleague. These findings resonate with previous research confirming that observed altruism results in individual status gains among groups. This provides a greater potential for elevated status as the personal cost of an altruistic act increases.

The Business of Empathy and Altruism

Another study similarly asked employees to rate their CEOs in terms of four traits: Integrity, Compassion, Forgiveness, and Responsibility. Executive development firm, KRW International, reports that CEOs earning high character marks had an average return on assets of 9.35%. This is nearly five times the 1.93% of their low ranking counterparts. While dramatic, this margin is not all that surprising. Stanford University research psychologist Emma Seppala cites neuroimaging research. The study confirmed how our brains respond better to bosses who have shown us empathy. And, as a result, this established a link between workplace trust and performance.

Business writer Jayson Boyers aptly notes that “relationship-focused success expands capacity and potential, and empathy is a business skill that actually grows when practiced and shared.”. Empathy and altruism are skills we develop, rather than static personality traits. This notion is key for businesses hoping to incorporate a positive emotional outlook into workplace culture.

altruism social networks

Empathy and Altruism in Practice

While in practice it may seem overwhelming, the research of James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis is encouraging. Fowler and Christakis studied 5,000 people over 20 years and discovered people surrounded by happier people tended to be happier in the future. According to Fowler, “We found a statistical relationship not just between your happiness and your friends’ happiness, but between your happiness and your friends’ friends’ friends’ happiness.” In lay terms, practicing altruism and empathy is statistically more likely to produce an outward ripple through your social network that will find its way back to you via the growing compassion of your peers.

In the coming weeks, we encourage you to be attentive to opportunities to practice your compassion. Turn an earnest mistake into a teachable moment or a disagreement over strategy as a chance to broaden your perspective. If you notice an overwhelmed colleague this week, consider offering to pick up their lunch. Altruism and empathy are one of the most effective means of improving emotional culture. Plus, they also produce tangible benefits in the workplace. The best part: the only limit to how much you get is how much you give.

Open-Plan Office: A Close-Minded Approach to Workplace Design?

open-plan office Today, roughly 70% of U.S. offices have few to no partitions, according to the International Facility Management Association. The open-plan office is traced back to “office landscaping,” a design technique pioneered by German consultants Quickborner in the 1950s. Conventional wisdom holds that the absence of walls fosters camaraderie among coworkers. It even spurs impromptu conversations which blossom into innovations. This is, of course, in addition to the fact that a greater number of workers fit in an open-plan office, making it more most cost-effective for many businesses.  

The Open Office Today

Although popular for decades, the open-plan office has been the subject of recent spectacle. This is, in part, thanks to the high-profile workplace architecture of established tech giants like Google and Facebook, as well as relative newcomers like Airbnb. In today’s open-plan office a sea of organically arranged half-height cubicles is no longer what you’ll find; it now includes arcades, basketball courts, full-size pirate ships, and hydrogen-bomb-proof greenhouses. The recent past has seen a boom in startups looking to emulate established companies who project their success through creative office aesthetics. In fact, one of the side effects is a growing tendency to associate innovation and financial solvency with spaces that blur the distinction between conference room and playground. This tendency, coupled with the firmly entrenched belief in the open-plan office for harnessing employees’ creative potential, has effectively made an open-plan office a prerequisite for success. Although most businesses don’t have the resources to build an indoor tree house, many do have the ability to implement smaller environmental changes that work toward the same goal. For example, a cluster of individual cubicles could be replaced with communal tables to form a shared workspace. The quiet nook where employees pause for a moment of respite may now be occupied by a foosball table. There is arising tide of businesses seeking increasingly creative ways to give their workspaces a playful, egalitarian edge. Which leaves us wondering: does the underlying philosophy of the open-plan office actually hold water? open-plan office workplace design

The Impact on Productivity

The growing consensus among business writers is a surprisingly resounding “no.”. Some authors call for more walls in the workplace, citing numerous studies that suggest open-plan offices hamper productivity and reduce physical health. A survey of available research on the open-plan office reveals a rather substantial number of studies (particularly since the 1980s), with a striking level of consistency across their findings. To point out a few major trends, workers unsatisfied with their office environment blamed noise distractions and lack of privacy. This was especially true for those performing managerial and technical tasks. In particular, irrelevant speech contributes directly to mental workload and slows completion rates. Irrelevant speech conditions also result in higher workload ratings. A two-hour noise simulation correlated open-plan conditions with decreased motivation and impaired memory function. A similar study found that workers are less likely to make ergonomic adjustments in open-plan environments. (9) This is noteworthy when considering that poor posture in the workplace is strongly associated with a myriad of physical health problems including spinal disorders and cardiovascular disease. This snippet of negative data may paint a rather bleak picture for the state of the open-plan office. However, the trends do suggest concrete ways to optimize work environments, like increasing privacy and reducing ambient noise. Furniture specialists Steelcase have done promising work on this front. Two major studies they conducted with global research firm IPSOS found only 11% of global workers satisfied with their work environments, and 95% of North American workers desired additional private space in the office. Inspired by these findings, Steelcase designed five “Quiet Spaces” to easily incorporate into open-plan offices. The five spaces range from 48 to 100 square feet to accommodate both personal and collaborative uses. open-plan office workplace design

Making a Move Towards an Open Office

Emerging design trends clue us into what many more offices may look like in the future. The office should strike an attentive balance between a fluid, open work-space and smaller areas dedicated to privacy and focus. We achieve this at PerkSpot with our quiet lounge (complete with adjustable lighting!). In addition, we boast of three fully enclosed rooms for employees to use however they see fit. Therefore, it may be time for many businesses to consider evaluating their office design. Although, making productive changes won’t require anything as dramatic as enlisting the architectural prowess of Frank Gehry. Increasing employee access to privacy can be as simple as arranging several bookshelves to form a sequestered space. We don’t have to abandon the ideal image of a sprawling, quirky space where every employee is as friendly as they are productive; where a company’s typography themed desks are as cutting edge as the service it provides (or perhaps vice versa?).   We just have to remember that an office’s design should address the needs of the employees first. These typically include the ability to work in relative privacy when collaborating coworkers becomes a noisy distraction.