Revamping our workplaces to alleviate concerns raised about the spread of contagious diseases means that there will be lots of changes to offices and to how we behave when we’re in them. For the foreseeable future we’ll probably be wearing masks onsite and talking to each other through Plexiglass while sitting at annoying distances from each other.
Options to walk in our workplaces should remain, somehow, someway, when workplaces are ultimately reconfigured. Walking from place to place does lots of good things for what goes on in our heads. Treadmill desks also have their pluses, but their benefits aren’t as rich and varied as those that flow from perambulating from one place to another.
The first benefit of walking to note is that it can be good for our physical health, and what’s good for our physical health can boost our professional performance. The amount of walking that most of us can do at work is unlikely to trim tubby physiques into sleek ones, but using the muscles in our legs in a meaningful way can prevent blood from pooling there, for example. Standing at a sit-stand desk can have the same healthy effect while also providing people with some control over their at-work experiences.
Research consistently shows that walking has all sorts of cognitive payoffs. For example, after we’ve walked even a relatively short distance, our ability to remember things improves, particularly if we’re walking at our own preferred rate. Even in a small space, pacing may be just the trick required to bring something needed top-of-mind.
Walking boosts our mood, which is generally desirable – we get along better with others when we’re in a more positive mood, for example. Since walking improves our mood, it’s no surprise that it also enhances our ability to think effectively, and especially creatively, even after we’ve stopped actually walking around. As we return to the workplace and establish new space use protocols with colleagues and resolve the new challenges posed in the post-pandemic period, pleasant interactions and clear, creative thinking will be very useful.
Walking with others from one place to another helps to build social bonds with those people, but social distancing requirements and the possible widths of in-office circulation routes make with-others walking unlikely in the near future.
Clearly, the first priority in post-pandemic workplaces is to curtail the spread of disease, but, to the extent possible, maintaining in-workplace opportunities to walk, even relatively circuitous one-way ones, is also a good idea – one that can improve how our minds and our at-work societies function.
Sally Augustin, PhD, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com). Research Design Connections reports on research conducted by social and physical scientists that designers can apply in practice. Insights derived from recent studies are integrated with classic, still relevant findings in concise, powerful articles. Topics covered range from the cognitive, emotional, and physiological implications of sensory and other physical experiences to the alignment of culture, personality, and design, among others. Information, in everyday language, is shared in a monthly subscription newsletter, an archive of thousands of published articles, and a free daily blog. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.