Art in the Workplace

Learn the advantages of introducing art in your office or home as a strategy for helping to lower your stress levels and your employees also.

Simply place stress is defined as a real or interpreted threat to our body or mind which makes us do it. It changes with each individual person.

Imagine you are at the office, the phone keeps ringing, but you're trying to focus on a report you must have completed yesterday, and each time you check your email there's another batch of emails that need answers. So you stay late and a colleague presumes that this is an invitation to talk to you for 20 minutes about nothing important.

Everyone copes differently; maybe you reach for a coffee & cake, or go out for a cigarette break or enjoy a glass of wine at the end of the day. Or perhaps all three?! How you respond and how you manage the pressures of everyday living can determine your well being both physically and emotionally. Stress has been linked to most of the major causes of death, such as heart disease, cancer, suicide and accidents.

Not all pressure in life stems from negative events - maybe you've just landed a new better paying job or contract. They key is balance - learning how to relax and control your response to the stressors in life.

As soon as you learn how to relax you not only reduce you stress levels, you reinforce your whole immune system and wellbeing. Just avoiding'boosters' like chocolate and cigarettes and taking short'comfort' breaks through the day gives your body & mind a opportunity to fix. Finding what works for you is just as important as figuring out what your triggers are.

How does this link to art at the work area I hear you ask?

Well, we have all experience a moment once we've been out and around and seen a place that each and every time we consider it are senses are full of a warm memory of this time we watched a sunset throughout the water which turned a pinky orange or the view from the top of a mountain we've just climbed. We can feel the wind and sun, as it had been that day and smell the air.

Every time we think of it we're transported back to that moment in time. It's one reason we enjoying seeing new areas, stepping out of our daily routines to experience something new - it makes you feel alive and restores your spirits.

Now imagine that you own a piece of art in your workplace that did just that. It satisfactorily holds your attention so you could'get lost in the piece' releasing your head and providing a feeling of solitude in a busy open area office. Often that is when the best solutions or ideas are born - if your mind is relaxed.

Surely that's much better than working in windowless rooms with dull coloured walls, breathing recycled air and lit with harsh artificial lighting?

Add to it the fact you're enhancing the appearance of your workspace and creating a significant statement about your business, its ethos & design and creating a pleasant atmosphere. Surely that is a compelling enough reason to pick the ideal artwork for your office.