Background Research

The affects of physical activity on stress

Part of my research was also to investigate the positive affects physical activity has on stress and how our game might benefit employees in the workplace. Below is the information that I found.

Stress is an inevitable part of life and the work place can often be a main contributor. However there are ways it can be managed and exercise/physical activity is one of the most encouraged coping mechanisms of doing so by health care professionals.

Studies show that it is very effective at reducing fatigue, improving alertness and concentration, and at enhancing overall cognitive function. This can be especially helpful when stress has depleted your energy or ability to concentrate.

Exercise and other physical activity produce endorphins, chemicals in the brain that act as natural painkillers, which in turn reduces the affect that stress has on a person’s mental and physical state. (Anxiety and Depression Association of America).

Having a game that requires the player to dynamically move and engage will help inner city office workers to take a step out of their likely stressful work environment and relieve some of this built up pressure. This will therefore improve concentration in the workplace and help to maintain those all important boss- employee relationships.

Demographic

(Demographic research done by Charis)

The game would be a great way to relieve stress and angry outbursts in the office by ‘letting it out’ in a controlled and fun environment. The game itself will be very short (maybe around 60 seconds), but as a group we feel this is enough to take an office worker’s mind off of what is troubling them/make them feel better to continue working throughout the day.

Since violence can be a major problem, although not many strike colleagues, hitting something physical such as multiple buttons can release that urge.

Our aim is not to completely rid of the stress caused in the workplace, but to at least make it that bit easier for workers to have an outlet that is close by that can be used easily and quickly.

Location

(Location for where the game might be situated done by Marissa)

The locations in London that seem to be more Offices based seem to be Farringdon and Canary Wharf.

Initially we wanted to have our beat the box outside on the main streets but we ran into multiple problems such as, how would we convince adults to give us a moment of their time to enter a box on their lunch break, Most office buildings have cafeterias and shops inside to buy lunch so we might not get a great turn out, the peak time of the box would be around lunch time, since the box would be outside another issue that we would come across is how do we stop kids from going in, How do we stop tourists from going in.

After thinking hard about these issues, we came across the idea of including our box within the actual workplace, for example I found out that Google HQ had installed slides inside the building to relieve stress and make their work environment more fun, so having Beat the Box inside the workplace rather than outside would actually work in our favour and solve the multiple problems we had.

Having the Beat the Box inside a workplace like a skyscraper where workers rarely even come out to go have lunch would work best.

Although the size of the box may have to be compromised depending on where we actually place it within the work place, and we also have to be aware of the volume of people beating the box has it is a workplace and we wouldn’t want to disturb the people who are still working.
Maybe adding sound proofing could solve that issue.