workplace

22 September 2015

Mental Health: We’re All Affected

As we work to lift the mental health stigma, we’re missing the boat. The conversation should be: What can we do to promote a mentally healthy environment for ourselves and others every day?

Mental health is a spectrum; don’t delude yourself, we’re all on it. It ranges from “normal” emotions to “abnormal” emotions…from happy and perky at one end to suicidal thoughts at the other. And most of us aren’t hovering around happy and perky.

We don’t realize how much our daily emotional and mental health affects us. How we feel affects every single thing in our worlds. Just take a snapshot of any scenario from yesterday. What happened? What were your feelings around the event? How did you react? How did you feel physically based on what you thought and did in response? If it was a negative exchange at work, for example, maybe you got a knot in your stomach and couldn’t concentrate on your project for 45 minutes after the encounter.

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29 June 2015

My Living Office: A View from Paris

Hello from the Land of Design, aka Paris!

A Living Office is a high-performing workplace that delivers an elevated experience of work for people and helps organizations achieve their strategic goals. Herman Miller

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30 March 2015

The Power of Outdoor Meditation Spaces

What better way to rejuvenate than to slip into a quiet retreat in fresh air. As the intense connection between human and nature (biophilia) gains momentum, designers are emphasizing the need to bring in more plants, daylight and open air to the workplace. Likewise, as employers now understand the importance of mindfulness and meditation for their most important asset, the employee, companies are adopting meditation as part of a complete wellness plan. Combine the two…nature and meditation….and we have an explosive combo. Retreat. Relax. Revive.

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19 January 2015

A vision of hope…

While I echo the sentiments in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech of equality for all, I, too, have a dream. I have a dream for wellness…a dream for wellness at work, a dream for wellness at home, a dream for wellness in schools.

I have a dream that work is a place where people thrive, where all employees are treated equally, where they are treated as people and not things.

I have a dream for schools where teachers and children are respected equally, where teachers have time to eat lunch and time to take breaks and children can move and laugh and learn at their own pace.

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14 October 2014

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Want a Break from Work…..at Work?

New Business Creating third spaces within the workplace^®

The World Health Organization (WHO) claims: “A healthy working environment is one in which there is not only an absence of harmful conditions but an abundance of health-promoting ones.”¹ The American Institute of Stress adds, “Numerous studies show that job stress is far and away the major source of stress for American adults and that it has escalated progressively over the past few decades.”² “According to the WHO, the cost of stress to American businesses is as high as $300 billion, and unless we change course, this will only get worse,” says Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post.³

CHAPEL HILL, NC – October 14, 2014 — Easterling Consulting is a new business whose principal, Melinda Easterling, has a specific focus: seeing the workplace change through creating “third spaces” in large companies. And she’s done her homework.

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22 September 2014

Creating Third Spaces within the Workplace

What are Third Spaces? And how do they affect you?

The first space is home. The second space is work. All other spaces in between that build community are often called Third Spaces.

In The Great Good Place, urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg discussed the power of third places, “informal public gathering places [like]…cafes, coffee shops, bookstores and bars.” According to Oldenburg, “social well-being and psychological health depend upon community.”

We spend most of our waking hours at work, so it follows that we incorporate these Third Spaces into the work setting to encourage social and psychological health.

Blog Archives

Mental Health: We’re All Affected

My Living Office: A View from Paris

The Power of Outdoor Meditation Spaces

A vision of hope…

PRESS RELEASE

Creating Third Spaces within the Workplace

Quiet Spaces in the Workplace: When do We Go?