What WFH does to the brain

The Rotterdam research isn’t the first to suggest the benefits of in-office working. A study in September this year of 3,000 workers reported that travelling to and from the office each day had a positive impact on mental health.

Forty-five per cent of people in the study said they felt more productive in the office, compared with 29 per cent at home, as they could share ideas with colleagues without having to schedule a call. A similar proportion said they were more distracted by household chores, deliveries and longer lunches when working from home.

Neuroscientists at University College London, who analysed the results of the survey, said physically going to the office boosts wellbeing as it allows employees to separate work and home life.

“The commute delineates boundaries between home and work life and can be used to switch one off and transition to the other, which can have a positive impact on cognitive performance, wellbeing and productivity,” said lead author Joseph Devlin, professor of brain sciences at UCL. “Just going to work generates more diverse experiences than working from home, especially through interactions with other people.”

Even before the pandemic, researchers were aware that loneliness significantly affects cognitive ability. A 2015 study from Cambridge University found that greater loneliness was associated with lower cognitive function. In the past two years, the message has only become more powerful. New research in November 2021 from the University of Exeter and King’s College London studied 6,000 over-50s about their brain health during the lockdown period. Those who suffered from the highest levels of anxiety and depression fared the poorest in cognitive tests and mentally aged the equivalent of six years.

James Goodwin is director of the Brain Health Network and the author of Supercharge Your Brain: How to Maintain a Healthy Brain Throughout Your Life. “If you’d wanted to devise a plan to damage the nation’s brain health, then you would have come up with social isolation,” he says.

“We have long known the devastating effects of prolonged social isolation on both our general and brain health,” says Goodwin.

“Loneliness ages us as badly as 15 cigarettes a day, or drinking a bottle of gin, according to a study at Berkeley University. Research over a 12-year period to 2010 from the Harvard Adult Development Study showed that the thinking skills of those who described themselves as ‘lonely’ declined by 20 per cent more than those who were not. Being socially isolated is pernicious, and has been robustly proven to hasten dementia and long-term cognitive decline.”

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Cooper, who last year co-authored a book named Flexible Work: Designing our Healthier Future Lives, believes the best solution is hybrid working – a mixture of in-office days and working from home. “All the studies from the CIPD (the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) say the same,” he says.

“Research has shown that giving an employee some autonomy – knowing than their manager trusts them – leads to less sickness absence and more overall productivity. There’s no doubt that this hybrid working is the way forward.”

Telegraph, London

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