Working From Home

Working from home can cause many issues that affect your mental health.

• isolation from your work colleagues

• lack of motivation

• increased fatigue

• blurred lines from personal and professional space

• overeating

• end up over working.

• Anxiety

• feeling alone

If you feel you are suffering from any of the above or maybe something different that has affected your mental health since you started working from home, please give Sunflowers Counselling a call or email.
We are here to help.

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Working from home – is no man an island?

 

The pandemic affected us all in different ways, but there was something that seemed to unite a large amount of the population… and that was working from home.

Long before the unique times of Covid-19 it was thought a mere dream for office workers to be able to forgo the stressful commute to work and simply stay in their warm houses, in their pjs and work from their laptops while watching This Morning.

That dream soon became a reality for many as lockdown hit. How long before the novelty wore off and people started craving for something more than a few minutes team talk in the morning? Did the lack of human interaction begin to affect their mental health? As no man is an island.

Humans need interaction as a rule. We are social creatures, and we need others to endure. It’s in our nature. Social interaction is essential to every aspect of our health as humans. Having strong bonds with each other is very important to our emotional wellbeing.  Everyone needs social relationships to survive and blossom.

I decided to conduct my own research and send out questionnaires to office workers who now work from home. I had made a prediction before reading the results that they would be negative, and many would be suffering from depression from being isolated; but the results I received were very different.

When the 10 people were asked “Are you as productive at home as you are in an office setting?”

Answer came back such as, “I find I am much more productive at home as I am able to do household chores in my breaks, so I don’t stress about them in the evening like I did while I was in work” and “I'm more productive at home most of the time, because I don't get bothered by other people in the office asking for help.” Only one person said that they found it difficult as they found their house distracting.

Another question that was asked was “Do you ever get lonely?”

Again, a low percentage of people answered with a yes. A lot of answers stated that if they did, they don’t anymore and have now got used to their own company and much prefer it.

Many people stated that the hardest thing was not being able to switch off and the work and home environment were the same, though this seems to be the only negative that a large majority discussed.

The positives included your office never has to close. You can catch up on work early in the morning or late in the evening as you always have access to your workplace. Though seen as a positive it must be considered how healthy this is for your mental health. Although convenient with the office never closing, people may get carried away, working over hours and could lead to the overuse of screens.

The last question was “Do you think it you would be about to settle back into an office environment without issue after working from home for so long?” Again, I found the answers to be different from what I expected with most saying they wouldn’t want to go back to working in an office again. “I don't think I would ever want to work in an office environment regularly ever again”.

In summary of my research, the people have come to terms with working on their own at home. If they are saving money from commuting or buying lunch, especially in this economic squeeze. People are satisfied with a team talk via face time if it means they are able save money on childcare or be there when a package is delivered.

In conclusion the overwhelming thought that comes across from my research is that office workers have now adapted to their new circumstances, and this is now their new normal; and they are quite happy to be an island. What effects this will have on the population’s mental health in the future remains to be seen, though no one thing is certain. We never know what humans will have to adapt to in years to come, especially if companies decide to bring all the workers back to the office.

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