How can healthy eating make us happier?

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    Woman happy healthy snacking

     

    You can’t buy happiness, but you can partly eat it. Employees who eat healthy food at work and have healthy snacks are more productive and energetic—in short, happier. But what is the connection between work happiness and healthy food at work?

    Happiness hormones

    Let’s start at the beginning. Our brains constantly communicate with all our cells through neurotransmitters. Every time we eat something, these neurotransmitters create a nice, blissful feeling in our brains. When we eat fast sugars and carbohydrates, we get that blissful feeling briefly, but it quickly fades away, making way for a dip and sometimes even a low mood. 

    On the other hand, when we eat wholesome, healthy food with useful nutrients that give us a feeling of fullness, it triggers that blissful feeling for a longer time.

    That’s why it’s important to choose the right nutrients that stimulate the production of these neurotransmitters or happiness hormones for a longer period. Some good examples are chickpeas, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, bananas, and also whole grain rice.

    Not only do our brains play a major role in the link between healthy food and (work) happiness. Our gut flora is also undeniably important. A happy gut means a happy you, so what we put in our mouths every day largely determines how happy and healthy we feel.

    In our Podcast with Rudy Proesmans We already extensively discussed the effect of fast sugars, the importance of a healthy gut flora, and the impact on our health.

    What can you do as an employer to boost work happiness?

    Work happiness is closely linked to work health. That’s why it’s important to create a positive upward spiral by focusing on work happiness, healthy snacks and lunches, regular exercise, and stress management.

    Employers therefore have a prime opportunity to help their employees achieve optimal work happiness and give their vitality a serious boost.

    If only fatty, carbohydrate-rich snacks full of refined sugars are available in the workplace, you will find unhappy, irritable, exhausted, and tired employees who struggle to concentrate.

    However, when employees are encouraged and given the chance to consciously make healthy choices, work happiness will surely increase, resulting in higher productivity and lower absenteeism.


    4 tips to encourage employees to choose healthy food

    1. Make healthy food and healthy snacks easily available at work
    Go beyond just providing a fruit bowl; thoroughly overhaul the vending machine and stock it with healthy snacks. At JustBite, you can choose from various snack boxes so that healthy snacking becomes as easy as ‘a walk in the park.’

    Also review the lunch options and, if possible, adjust the company restaurant menu or partner with local suppliers who offer healthy lunch options instead of yet another ‘unhealthy sandwich.’

    2. Facilitate healthy eating and snacking
    Provide a pleasant space where employees can enjoy healthy food and where they can eat and take breaks mindfully, consciously, and relaxed. People are social beings, and eating is a social event. When employees eat together, they usually eat slower, healthier, and more consciously, which helps them feel full faster and truly connect with each other. Such a mindful lunch break also helps to disconnect from work for a moment, and moving to the lunchroom encourages a bit of physical activity.

    Setting up this space doesn’t have to take a big bite out of the budget; small adjustments often go a long way. Involve employees in the setup so they feel they are taking their health into their own hands.

      

    Healthy snack box at work

     

    3. Raise awareness
    Often employees eat unhealthily out of habit and because they are unaware of what is healthy and what is not. Help your employees positively move towards healthy choices. You cannot force your employees to choose healthy options, but you can guide them in the right direction through brochures, posters, workshops… JustBite helps by providing useful brochures, info sheets, Lunch & Learn workshops… to encourage this awareness so that healthy eating can become a habit.


    4. Create a sense of community
    Ask your employees to share their favorite healthy recipes and create a company cookbook with the most beloved dishes. Organize a team-building event where you cook healthy meals together. Provide healthy cookbooks in the lunchroom so employees can experiment together and exchange ideas. This way, healthy eating becomes a fun group activity and employees can motivate each other.

     

    Healthy food can therefore play a very important role in the long-term job satisfaction of employees. By investing in awareness around healthy snacking and providing healthy food options to employees, you as an employer give your staff the chance to become and remain healthy, happy, productive, and satisfied workers. And happy employees lead to happy employers.

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