Your brain is a muscle. And like any other muscle, it needs to be exercised regularly, to stay in tip-top shape. As a nation, we often place less emphasis on exercising our brain, than we do for other muscles
For any business, it is of particular importance that your employees are exercising their brains so that they can improve their memory. Memory improvement helps employees retain and learn new information better.
As a result of memory improvement, your employees can boost their performance, which leads to greater overall productivity. These are seven benefits that can advance employee memory improvement.
1. Brain Games
As previously stated, your staff has to be exercising their brains, much like they would exercise their bodies. Mind games, from such companies as Lumosity, provide your brain with this exercise.
According to Fast Company, numerous studies show the potential advantages of exercising your brain. Stimulating your mind can boost your brainpower, and even lower your risk of Alzheimer’s.
Now, it is important when exercising your brain that you don’t overdo it. You can strain your mind just like you can strain muscles when working out.
2. Exercise
If you want to improve your memory, we know that it’s important to exercise your mind. Still, it’s just as important to exercise your body too. As the saying goes, “healthy body, healthy mind.”
Breaking a sweat is crucial to positive brain health. Aerobic workouts specifically get your heart pumping, and brings nutrients to brain cells and helps grow nerves and connect them.
In fact, much like mental exercises, physical exercise can prevent mental disease. According to Gary Small, MD, director of the UCLA Longevity Center, 20 minutes a day of aerobic exercise will lower your risk for Alzheimer’s.
There are several employee benefits you can use to support increased activity by your staff. An in-house gym offers your employees convenience and cost saving on gym memberships. But it is also costly for your business.
A cheaper benefit is to offer gym membership discounts or subsidies. Help motivate your employees to exercise by giving them a gym membership for a deeply discounted price.
3. Eat Right
Your diet is just as important for your memory as exercise. One of the reasons your memory fails is due to free radicals. These dangerous free radicals can erode DNA and cellular structure, which results in the oxidation of the brain.
This erosion is why it’s so important to eat foods containing antioxidants. Food such as fruits, vegetables, turmeric, and green tea contain these antioxidants.
Similarly, inflammation is an aging issue that affects everyone. Inflammation can also have an adverse effect on brain cells. Food with omega-three fats, like fish and nuts, help reduce this inflammation.
As a business, you can provide your staff with some of the healthy snack foods listed above. Or if you’re catering a meal, make sure it includes these foods. If you have a vending machine, swap any junk food out for some of these brain-healthy options.
4. Sleep
Sleep is vital for any hopes of substantial memory improvement. When you get enough sleep time, your body will be rested, and your mind alert. Your brain needs an opportunity to shut down and reboot. Sleep is just that opportunity.
When your employees are well-rested their memory improves, and so can their productivity. So, what are your options if you want your employees to get more rest? The first option is flexible work arrangements.
Flexible work arrangements, including flexible location, schedule, and hours, allow employees to work when they want to. These agreements give employees the flexibility to work on other engagements and get the type of rest they need.
Another benefit that can boost your workers’ sleep is to create a nap room. Or if you don’t have the space or money, provide a nap hour. Once every week (or whatever period of time you want to use) allow your employees to nap for a specified amount of time.
5. Relax
As previously said, your brain is essentially a large muscle. Making sure it gets enough rest is as important as making sure it gets enough exercise. One of the ways to relax your mind is to sleep. The other method is just to avoid mental taxation.
Burnout is a serious issue that can be corrected through your company’s employee benefits. Stress is one of the biggest sources of burnout. And stress can have an enormous negative impact on your firm’s bottom line.
Stress costs U.S. businesses an estimated $300 billion in health care costs and missed work, in 2016. Additionally, chronic stress can shrink the memory centers, inside the brain.
As you can see, reducing your employees’ stress should be a top priority for your company. Several benefits help employees evade this stress.
Any paid leave is hugely beneficial for stress relief. Taking some time away from the office, relaxing, and powering your brain down is necessary for reducing stress. PTO, vacation, and sick days are all types of paid leave.
Similarly, the second benefit is to encourage breaks during the workday. While in an ideal world your employees would be able to work at peak productivity for all eight hours a day, that isn’t possible.
Encourage your employees to take a 5-15-minute break for every hour they work. These breaks allow workers to reduce stress over the course of a workday incrementally. Little breaks allow your staff to reset their memory and refocus on their job.
6. Plants
That’s right, you could aid your employees’ minds, simply by putting a few more plants around the office. According to a 2014 paper, adding one plant per square meter, to an office boosted employee performance on memory retention tests.
Adding some extra plants to your workspace is an excellent and economical way to stimulate employee memory improvement. Plus, a few extra plants is a great way to have a little more of an eco-friendly office environment.
7. Substantial Health Coverage
The last benefit you can use to aid employee memory improvement is to provide your employees with good healthcare coverage. Health insurance is crucial for maintaining and even improving memory.
First, health insurance is important for its mental health benefits. Mental health issues can (obviously) have a sizable impact on an individual’s memory. Seeking appropriate and timely treatment for any mental health issue is vastly important.
Second, health insurance matters for memory improvement because your physical health is linked to your mental health and memory. If you have a chronic physical condition such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol you need see a doctor.
According to Small, taking the correct medication for these conditions will also make a difference in the health of your memory. These diseases sap your brain power, and receiving the proper treatment is key to maintaining a high level of cognitive functioning.
The Wrap
Memory improvement could be the difference between average and above-average employee-performance. Use these seven benefits to help build your employees’ memory…if you remember.