Lisburn Jobs and Benefits office recently completed the 3 week WELL challenge which I was delighted to see a lot of staff embraced with enthusiasm. We started week one, the nutrition week, with a healthy breakfast bar based on advice from the WELL nutritionist Laura. This led some staff to try new cereals that they continue to enjoy.
Also during this week we encouraged each other to drink more water and some of us invested in re-usable water bottles to keep track of how much we were drinking and cut down on plastic cup waste, an extra unexpected benefit of this water challenge was the amount of extra steps we racked up walking back and forth to the bathroom an extra 10 times a day!! Week 2 came the fitness week where personal challenges for each person ranged from going for a lunchtime walk to simply getting up and walking to another staff members’ desk rather than ringing over to speak to them.
We ended our challenge by focusing on mental health awareness by saying hello to everyone we met (yes I got some weird looks at first!) but as we have had a lot of new staff recently it was a good way to make them feel welcome. We were also lucky enough to be able to set up a small library in the canteen with a particular focus on short reads and puzzles for tea break or in times of stress when we need 5 minutes downtime. My particular favourite is the Sudoku book. All in all our office had a very positive experience with the challenge and we are looking forward to the next WELL event!
