Windows at Work
Many factors impact how we feel at work: the job itself of course is one, but other factors, like how often we move, our ability to influence decisions, interpersonal relationships or conflict, our occupational status, and our gender all play important roles in our attitudes as work. Delving deeper into these factors is the realm of organizational psychology, but our work’s physical setting matters too: how noisy is our work space, how easy is it for us to access privacy, what type of objects are in our eye line; when it comes to our overall work experience, our physical surroundings are important. In this article, we’re going to pull back the curtain on an important element of our workplace’s physical environment: windows.
Why Windows Matter
Given all the factors that impact our experience at work, it’s difficult to definitively point to the presence of windows as necessary for our work wellness in and of themselves, and as of now, there’s no scientific proof that workplaces without windows are harmful, but many empirical studies help provide evidence for what we intuitively know: having a window at work makes a big difference. Studies of the impact of windows on our attitudes and health focus on two important factors: light and views.
Light
Seasonal Affective Disorder (depression that follows seasonal patterns) was officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association in the 1980s, lending credence to the intuitive notion that access to light impacts our wellbeing. Humans, like all living organisms, are naturally drawn toward the sun as the source of life-giving nutrients; this is the helitropic effect, and psychologists have further expanded it to include the role that positive emotions play in our overall wellbeing. We can combat the impact of seasonal affective disorder by engaging in activities like bright light therapy, or spending 10 minutes in the sun. These activities have been proven to increase serotonin, the happiness hormone.
Sunlight exposure is also important for helping our bodies to produce vitamin D, which is critical for our bone health. One research team focused on stroke survivors, who generally have greater vitamin D deficiency and incidents of osteoporosis than the general population. When stroke patients spent as little as 15 minutes per day in the sun, 84% of them had fewer hip fractures than the stroke patients who remained indoors. In a study of older women in the U.S., researchers found that outdoor gardening and yardwork was the greatest predictor of high bone density, even when compared to athletic activities like jogging or swimming.
In the workplace, sunlight has been shown to impact classic measures of workplace success such as productivity and job satisfaction. One study focused on a workplace in Southern Europe and found that sunlight penetration had a positive impact on job satisfaction and well-being. Additionally, workers who had more sunlight exposure during their work days reported lower intentions to quit than those who did not work near a window.
Views
Several key studies have proven that it’s not just access to windows, but what we can see out those windows that’s important. Two of the key theories in environmental psychology focus on nature views as essential for reducing our stress and restoring our tired brains. Stress Reduction Theory, developed by Roger Ulrich (see the Stress Reduction Theory article), focuses on nature’s ability to elicit positive emotions as the key to nature’s calming impact on our stressed bodies. Ulrich’s research focuses on people in classically high-stress situations, observing and measuring their responses when they’re exposed to imagery of urban settings versus natural ones.
One of Ulrich’s studies compared the experiences of patients recovering from major surgery; those patients with a view of nature outside their hospital window experienced faster recovery times, fewer post-op complications, and a generally more positive attitude than patients whose window view was a brick wall. Several other studies of prison inmates have similar results. A 1982 prison study found that prisoners with nature views were less likely to report ailments in the sickbay, and a 1985 prison study found that prisoners with a nature view had lower frequencies of stress-related symptoms like headaches and digestive upsets than prisoners whose windows did not view nature elements.
In the Southern Europe workplace study above, workers with an urban view reported greater job strain than workers who could see nature out their windows. What these studies consistently find is that natural versus urban views provide stress relief even if the nature views aren’t particularly spectacular: even the presence of vegetation among built elements is good.
The other important theory to consider in relation to the impact of views from windows is Attention Restoration Theory, developed by Rachel & Stephen Kaplan. In the Kaplans’ experiments, participants who view nature are better able to turn on involuntary attention - a restful brain mode that allows our problem-solving work brains to rest. Rachel Kaplan and her colleagues conducted two experiments in the 1980’s that looked specifically at how access to green space at work impacts workers’ experiences. One study focused on a large corporation, including a total of 168 employees, some with indoor desk jobs (with windows and without) and some who worked outdoors. The study utilized a survey that measured perceived job stresses, perceived effectiveness of various restorative opportunities, life satisfaction, physical health, and job setting characteristics.
The outdoor workers had markedly different survey responses from their indoor counterparts: they reported their jobs were significantly less demanding, and they felt less pressured, less frustrated, and less harried. Within the indoor worker group, those with a window reported less ailments than those without.
Kaplan’s second study focused on 615 participants (mainly women) with jobs that involved very little movement, and a wide spectrum of jobs and pay levels. For these workers, those with a view of nature felt less frustrated and more patient, found their job more challenging, expressed greater enthusiasm for it, and reported higher life satisfaction and overall health than those without these views. The study also found interesting correlations between access to nature views and other elements that impact worker wellbeing. For example, privacy in the workplace has been shown to be a big indicator of worker satisfaction - the workers with greater access to nature views reported feeling that they had greater control over their privacy.
Some Limitations
A major challenge for all of these studies of workplace window access is that they’re solely based on participants’ reported experiences, and with so many factors impacting work life, it’s hard to definitively point to windows as the difference-maker, even when controlling for variables that are known to impact the effects of the physical space like gender, occupational status, and ability to influence decisions. Additionally, the researchers acknowledge that outdoor jobs and indoor jobs are quite different, so it’s impossible to adequately determine how much of the workers’ attitudes are influenced by access to windows versus the work itself, and the studies didn’t control for things like intensity or duration of sunlight. Scientists also readily admit that most studies of nature versus urban views have yet to determine what specific natural elements make the most impact on our stress levels.
Even so, it’s hard to deny that given the choice, most workers would rather work in an environment with access to windows, both for aesthetic reasons and wellbeing. Most workplaces in the U.S. today acknowledge the importance of health and wellbeing for workers on things like retention and productivity, and some even invest in programming to promote worker health regardless of whether empirical data proves its effectiveness. This indicates that many work places will be open to considering light exposure and nature views as part of their protocol for worker satisfaction.
Practical Implications
Here are some ideas for how you can integrate lessons about work windows into your daily work life.
Idea #1
Seek out windows or outdoor areas for your work breaks, especially on sunny days. Just 10-15 minutes in the sunlight can release serotonin and feed us vitamin D. If you live in a region that experiences periods of gray weather, check out options for light therapy lamps to keep at your desk.
Idea #2
Take control of your work attitude by increasing your awareness of the factors that impact your job satisfaction, productivity, and work wellbeing. When you find yourself having a particularly good work day, notice what elements make up your physical environment, interpersonal interactions, and your mental state. You may or may not discover that sunlight plays a role, but having awareness of what enables you to perform at your best can help empower you to create your own opportunities for positivity at work.
Idea #3
When considering taking a new job, it’s likely we each have a list of factors we research before diving in: things like salary and benefits, opportunities for advancement, and work culture. If it’s not already there, make sure to add “physical work environment” to your list of considerations; ask questions about the employer’s efforts to maintain worker health and wellbeing, including window access and nature views. While this information may not be the lynch pin in your decision-making, understanding your potential employer’s values around employee wellbeing is important.
Idea #4
Most of us have very little control over our workplace’s physical environment, and whether we have access to a window, but we do have agency when it comes to how we move around the space and where we choose to rest. Be intentional about identifying locations that help you feel comfortable, positive, and separated from stressors; ideally a quiet spot that allows you to take in a different view than what you see while you’re working; one that you find visually interesting or even beautiful.
Sources
Cohen, Harry. (2024, October 8). Harnessing a Heliotropic Mindset as Days Grow Shorter. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/be-the-sun-not-the-salt/202410/harnessing-a-heliotropic-mindset-as-days-grow-shorter
Friedman, B., N.G. Freier, and P.H. Kahn, Jr. 2004. “Office Window of the Future? Two Case Studies of an Augmented Window.” Extended Abstracts of CHI 2004 Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems, April 24-29.
Kaplan, Rachel. The role of nature in the context of the workplace. Landscape and Urban Planning, 26 (1993), pp. 193-201.
P. Leather, M. Pyrgas, D. Beale, C. Lawrence. Windows in the workplace—Sunlight, view, and occupational stress. Environment and Behavior, 30 (1998), pp. 739-762.
Marcus CC, Sachs NA. Therapeutic Landscapes: An Evidence-Based Approach to Designing Healing Gardens and Restorative Outdoor Spaces. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley; 2014.
Turner, L. W., M. A. Bass, L. Ting, and B. Brown. 2002. “Influence of Yard Work and Weight Training on Bone Mineral Density among Older U.S. Women.” Journal of Women and Aging 14 (3–4): 139–48.
Ulrich, R.S. (1993) Biophilia, Biophobia, & Natural Landscapes. In: Kellert, S.R. and Wilson, E.O., Eds., The Biophilia Hypothesis, Island Press, Washington DC, 73-137.
