Let’s shift the narrative on health to focus on the root cause: workplace stress

How large of an issue is work-relat­ed stress?

Work-relat­ed stress is at an all-time high. It is report­ed that stress reg­u­lar­ly affects around 80% of UK adults, and the World Health Organ­i­sa­tion offi­cial­ly clas­si­fied burnout as a syn­drome caused by chron­ic work­place stress. These results are stag­ger­ing when you con­sid­er that we spend rough­ly a third of our lives at work. When employ­ee health is not met, the health of the busi­ness suf­fers. It’s esti­mat­ed that 57% of annu­al lost work­ing days are due to stress, anx­i­ety and depres­sion, and this costs busi­ness­es around £42bn a year.

I believe we should use this as a cat­a­lyst for change. The pan­dem­ic and cur­rent mar­ket con­di­tions have also thrown a much need­ed spot­light on work­place stress. We have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to rede­fine the nar­ra­tive that stress is nec­es­sary for suc­cess, and instead cre­ate work­places that suc­ceed by plac­ing the health of their employ­ees first.

What is the impact of stress on our health?

A cer­tain degree of work­place stress is accept­able and unavoid­able. But when stress builds up over time, it caus­es phys­i­o­log­i­cal changes in the body that com­pro­mise our immune sys­tem and increase our risk of devel­op­ing chron­ic dis­eases. We are increas­ing­ly mov­ing towards a world where the major­i­ty of dis­eases, cur­rent­ly over 70%, are chron­ic and have no med­ical cure. The only way to address them is through pre­ven­tion, by chang­ing our lifestyle to build healthy habits; sleep, diet, exer­cise, and build­ing in peri­ods of recov­ery from stress. Our cur­rent work­places and health­care sys­tems just aren’t built to address our health in a pre­ven­ta­tive way.

My back­ground in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and health­care, com­bined with wit­ness­ing the ben­e­fits of pre­ven­ta­tive health solu­tions, led me to devel­op Walk­ing on Earth (WONE), to end the glob­al stress epi­dem­ic. Our plat­form quan­ti­fies an individual’s stress state and devel­ops tai­lor-made inter­ven­tion pro­grammes based on a user’s spe­cif­ic pro­file.

How can WONE help to alle­vi­ate stress in the work­place?

Under­stand­ing your indi­vid­ual stres­sors is cru­cial to devel­op ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems to address your stress before it reach­es a point of cri­sis. Pro­vid­ing solu­tions for break­ing the cycle of chron­ic stress and mak­ing them acces­si­ble in a work­place is sur­pris­ing­ly sim­ple. Neu­ro­science has shown that as lit­tle as a 60-sec­ond breath­ing exer­cise is enough to move from a height­ened bod­i­ly stress state, to a calmer one, the parasym­pa­thet­ic state. It’s as sim­ple as cre­at­ing work­places where employ­ees can switch off for short peri­ods in the day to destress, re-focus and improve cog­ni­tive per­for­mance.

WONE is built to address this need. Our plat­form cen­tres around the pro­pri­etary WONE Index, designed with lead­ing sci­en­tists to quan­ti­fy an individual’s stress state. Our rec­om­men­da­tion engine devel­ops a tai­lored health plan con­sist­ing of live class­es and con­tent. All ses­sions are host­ed by care­ful­ly curat­ed experts that include neu­ro­sci­en­tists, New York Times best-sell­ing authors, TEDx speak­ers and world-lead­ing prac­ti­tion­ers. We mon­i­tor fluc­tu­a­tions in index scores over time and Pro­vide feed­back on changes in stress mea­sures through engage­ment in
the plat­form.

Why should busi­ness­es invest in a pre­ven­ta­tive health solu­tion for their employ­ees?

Rather than the ‘tick box’ well­be­ing ben­e­fits that serve as a plas­ter for unhealthy cul­tures, WONE is cre­at­ing a cat­e­go­ry of its own: a health-tech com­pa­ny that ben­e­fits employ­ees just as much as their employ­ers.

Because, when employ­ees are engaged, healthy and hap­py at work, they bring their best selves to work, go above and beyond what’s required, and are com­mit­ted to help­ing the busi­ness reach its goals. Invest­ing in a pre­ven­ta­tive health solu­tion can pro­vide a sig­nif­i­cant ROI, or cash sav­ings against the cost of days lost to absen­teeism or high staff turnover caused by chron­ic stress.

For more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it walkingonearth.com

Pro­mot­ed by Walk­ing on Earth