Top tips to improve your office environment

The environment you work in every day has an impact on your mental health. There are many things you can do to make sure your environment promotes a more positive effect on your mental wellbeing.

As part of Mind's 'Building solutions: environments for better mental health' campaign, here are some tips to improve your office. If you cannot perform these tasks yourself, ask your employer.

Ten top tips:

1. Bring a plant into your office to improve the air quality and brighten up your desk.
2. Cheer up dreary walls by putting up colourful pictures and paintings.
3. Look at ways to regulate temperature, such as desk fans, heaters or even emergency jumpers.
4. Move your desk away from radiators and areas of direct sunlight.
5. Get a small team together to look at how your desks and other office furniture is spaced out. You might find that with a bit of imagination you can improve your access to windows and give yourself more space to work.
6. Keep your desk tidy to make sure your work isn’t spreading into your colleague’s workspace. Try and give yourself ten minutes at the end of each day to put away files and papers.
7. If there isn’t much natural light in your office, replace your usual office lights with daylight bulbs.
8. Turn off your monitor (and computer for longer periods) when you don't need it. This will reduce the office temperature and noise levels.   
9. Reduce office noise by turning down the volume on your telephone.
10. Download a Mind wallpaper for your computer for when you need a distraction from emails.

• Introduce a feedback or comments box to encourage suggestions for improvement.
• Play your part in providing a supportive working environment. Take a few minutes to find out if your colleagues are feeling ok.
• Introduce an office environment champion - and volunteer to take on the role.
• Read Mind's Improving office environments report online (non-printable pdf format) for more recommendations.