Can you feel rested and productive in a hybrid bedroom home office space? Kylie shares the latest research on the impact of home workspaces on wellbeing. She outlines seven things you need to get right to create a psychologically...
The psychology of making a hybrid bedroom office space work.
Have you heard these comments:
“Avoid your bedroom as your remote workspace”
“Why you shouldn’t do work in your bedroom”
“Don’t work in your bedroom when you work from home” …
Internet headlines are all doom and gloom when it comes to combining your bedroom with a home office/ study space. Sleep specialists are adamant that sleeping and working in the same room is a recipe for disaster.
But what if you work from home and have limited space?
What if you’re a high school or university student studying for exams in your bedroom?
With noise, privacy or space constraints in most homes, there’s often no other option than to set up your workspace in your bedroom.
Is it ideal? No.
Can you make it work? Yes, so long as you know how to leverage the psychology of your space to support both rest and focus.
Right now my office is in my bedroom.
I’ve been working from my bedroom since Covid-19 hit and have experimented with different layouts and designs to strike the best possible balance between my sleep and work requirements. And like many high school students, my 2 teenagers, heading toward the HSC, both have a combined bedroom study space.
In this article, I’m sharing the latest research on the impact of home workspaces on wellbeing and how to optimise the design of a hybrid bedroom workspace to feel productive when you need to work and rested when you need to sleep.
What can go wrong when you combine a bedroom and workspace?
The pandemic lockdowns forced many people into a work from home arrangement. For families this meant adults and kids all needing a place to work at the same time. Requiring some quiet and privacy to take zoom calls, forced a lot of us into hybrid bedroom workspace arrangements.
A lot can, and did, go wrong for many people who combined their sleep and work spaces. Research carried out during lockdowns found that people who did not have a dedicated separate home office reported new mental health problems such as depression, stress, poor sleep quality, burnout, fatigue and reduced concentration.
Here are a few reasons why you need to plan your hybrid bedroom workspace carefully for your wellbeing:
A muddled mind
When you combine your bedroom and workspace, you might start to associate your bedroom with work and your workspace with sleep. Your brain forms cognitive associations with different environments so combining activities into a single space can muddle your mind. This might make it harder to focus if you are working and harder to rest when it’s time for bed.
Sleep disruption (why sleep specialists really don’t like this idea)
Aside from confusing your brain, workspaces require technology and technology is known to disrupt your brain’s sleep signals. The blue light emitted from the screens of computers or other devices disturbs the production of melatonin which we need to regulate sleep. Reduced sleep quality impacts your cognitive functioning, health and mood.
Distractions
Neuroscientists have discovered that distractions in your work environment will reduce your productivity and ability to solve problems and make decisions. But you knew that anyway. The problem with putting your desk in your bedroom is that you have new things to get distracted by – is that cosy comfy bed calling your name when the mid-afternoon slump hits?
Loss of boundaries
When you work and sleep in the same space, it’s more difficult to create a clear separation between your home and work life. It’s too easy to hop on to your laptop to write a few emails just before bed. This blurring of boundaries can lead to mental fatigues, decreased performance and reduced quality of leisure or family time.
To avoid these issues and protect your mental health there are things you can do to improve the psychology of your home - regardless of your space limitations. Here are seven tips for creating an emotionally and mentally supportive combined bedroom and workspace.
The seven things you need to get right to create a psychologically optimised hybrid bedroom workspace:
1. Noise. Noises, particularly the noises made by other members of your household, decrease concentration, sleep quality, productivity and mood, as well as increasing your stress levels. Noise reduction strategies include adding a rug, curtains or even a draft stopper under the door.
2. Lighting. Open your blinds and curtains to maximise natural light. This helps with concentration and boosts your mood. A task lamp on your desk can keep you focused when you use a cool light globe.
3. Temperature. Thermal comfort is surprisingly important for concentration and might prevent physical and mental health issues. A fan or heater (depending on the weather) might be all you need to sleep better and be more productive.
4. Ventilation. The air quality in your home impacts your mood and productivity so keep your hybrid bedroom workspace well ventilated by opening your windows as much as possible.
5. Layout. Feeling satisfied with the layout of your space has been shown to improve your productivity so it’s worth investing some time experimenting with different floor plans (or giving me a buzz for some help with the best layout for your space).
6. Biophilia. In general, having views outside of some greenery and/or indoor plants is associated with better mood and greater sense of wellbeing.
7. Design. Colour, in particular, has been found to affect our emotions with a number of studies finding that blue or green wall colours can reduce stress and improve mood when you are working. Read more about colour psychology here.
While hybrid bedroom workspaces can potentially impact your wellbeing, there are ways to create multipurpose rooms that reduce stress, and improve sleep quality and cognitive functioning. These seven tips will work just as well for the students in your home as they will for you. I’m here to help if you’d like some support optimising your hybrid sleep and work space for rest and productivity.