Remote Work Affects Your Brain

Studies show that working from home has its effects on the brain of the remote worker. They also show that remote working has reduced the abilities of the workers to think, concentrate and generate ideas. The loneliness and isolation that are attached with remote working cause negative effects on the ability to learn and grasp new information. This results in an impaired learning and memory. Due to the fact that the office and working in site are full of rich sources of stimulation for the brain. Hence a home environment isn’t as stimulating as the office. That’s why the brain keeps looking for these sources of stimulation in the remote work environment but has a difficulty finding them.
Remote work affects your brain, as such your brain tends to work overtime to try and comprehend the multiple faces it sees on the screen. Therefore you are unable to make genuine eye contact with people like you used to and you tend to be distracted by seeing your own face.

Ways in which remote work affects your brain:

1. Isolation caused by remote work affects your brain:

Remote workers tend to feel lonely and socially isolated while working from home. As such the video conferences will never compensate for the daily face to face interactions in the office. With loneliness and social isolation come lower productivity and lack of motivation. Hence your brain functions poorly when you are feeling isolated.

2. Overloaded virtual interactions:

Studies show that people tend to feel exhausted after a long day of video conferencing compared to a normal eight hour working day in office. This happens due to the fact that the human brain responds in a different way to video conferences than in real life interactions. As such the human brain captures non-verbal communication like body language and eye contacts. Unfortunately these features don’t exist in the video conferences however the brain never stops searching for them. This results in severe mental exhaustion.

3. Stress :

Even though people felt better knowing that they don’t have to commute, however remote work has blurred the boundaries between work life. Therefore some people have a difficulty switching off from their demanding job. While the distractions in the office are eventually replaced by interruptions at home.
This causes them to be stressed out. In addition to that when workers are stressed, they take longer time to perform the tasks at hand than when they are relaxed. On the long term, stress affects the performance negatively and affects your entire lifestyle choices.

4. Creativity:

It’s hard to be creative when you’re stressed. As the brain relies on stimulations to produce ideas and be creative. People usually get their inspiration from new experiences, sights and interactions with their mates. The remote work environment lacks such kind of things. That’s why employers should advice their employees to practice something new like learning a language or doing an activity to refresh their minds.

Recommendation on brain-boosting activities:

On top of the list of the brain-boosting activities comes staying hydrated. As such drinking from eight to ten cups of water per day helps improve the performance of your brain. In addition to that making sure you have a good night sleep as it detoxifies the brain and improves learning. Also breaking the routine is essential as such challenging yourself mentally by trying something new. Last but not least is eating foods that boosts the brain function like oily fish and berries.