Healthy Home Office Ideas For You & The Planet

Start with what you can’t see before you plan for what you can. Our ability to concentrate depends on being comfortable and alert. It’s our senses that inform how we feel in this space; inspired, relaxed or soporific. We can influence this environment and how it affects those senses.

Conventional equipment such as a small air conditioning unit that pulls heat and dust out of an overheated space (say from too much electronic equipment in a small room) keeps things fresh. Or, air purifiers which clean pollen and mould are useful as they’re known to niggle allergies and make you feel drowsy. The perfect office plants for those who want to go all natural but also reduce pollutants, include the ZZ plant or Devils Ivy, the best plants known for promoting air quality.

A little forward planning means you can remove the need for unnecessary heating and cooling. You just need to think in advance about how to harness the effects of the sun and seasons. Home office blinds can keep warm or cool in or out, depending on your needs.

Architella® cells in some Luxaflex window coverings can deflect the glare that heats up a room. Or, if you decide to make the most of a hot summer’s day and work in the evening instead, then keep the heat in the room as the sun drops with the same blinds. The gauzy structure of many of our fabrics, such as some of those used in Pirouette®, maximises any available daylight by dispersing it gently across the room, preventing the need to switch on electrical light for longer.

When you do need to call on electric light, remember home office lighting can still mean healthy lighting. Vitamin D can be an issue for many, especially those who work indoors who don’t get as much time as they’d like outdoors. SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) can also strike some when the winter draws in, bringing with it a low mood. A natural daylight bulb in your vintage Anglepoise lamp can work wonders for lifting spirits, as can contemporary pendant lighting that addresses a more demanding need. Look for those that can deliver at least 2,500 lux (the measure of light that lifts mood) and can change tone as you like from bright to warm.

Clutter can clog the mind as well as your home office setup. If you’re considering going paperless at home then a paperless home office is the obvious place to make the biggest change. Set up file sharing apps rather than printing, and avoid adding in surfaces for papers and files to congregate. A modern home office should take in the latest knowledge for a healthy working day; a standing desk or a sit to stand desk can incorporate storage and stop you from sitting all day.

This modular storage within the structure of the desk can make your home office furniture fitness building as well as storage and floor space smart, by being the right height to stand at. And the fashion of replicating a corporate environment at home is over; an inspiring mood or cork board and photos of loved ones will keep your spirits lifted and remind you why you’re working in the first place.

Like our healthy home office ideas? Check out our guide to waking up feeling refreshed.