Celebrating National Wellness Month at HPNE
For August’s National Wellness Month, we reflect on ways HPNE supports the wellness of our employees, and welcome a guest speaker from Virgin Pulse.
National Wellness Month
Established in 2018, National Wellness Month is celebrated annually in August to recognize the importance of maintaining our health. The month's dedication most notably recognizes that in order to be successful in our everyday responsibilities and make an impact on the world, we must first prioritize our own wellbeing. People choose to celebrate the month in a variety of ways, including a 31 day health and wellness challenge, or a wellness pledge.
How Can You Improve Wellness in Your Life?
Wellness is something that will differ in definition from person-to-person depending on your specific needs. Some general recommendations to improve health and wellness include incorporating more whole foods into your diet, mindfulness, meditation, getting more and better quality sleep, maintaining a regular sleep schedule, increased water consumption, and incorporating movement into your daily routine. However, something as small as stretching throughout your work day or setting aside time to do an activity you're passionate about can also improve your mental and physical wellness. This month reminds us to check in on how we are feeling, and take the necessary actions to make sure we are feeling our best.
Supporting Wellness at HPNE
There are a variety of ways in which wellness is supported and encouraged at High Purity New England. Firstly, natural light is heavily featured throughout all of our buildings, with a report by UCLA stating that natural light not only improves your general well-being, but your mental and physical health as well. Due to this, many of our office spaces and break areas feature large windows. An outdoor eating space is also available at our locations for employees to get fresh air and natural light during their lunch breaks.
Additionally, all full-time employees are eligible to receive health care benefits to remove the stress of costly healthcare visits. Our health and wellness benefit, available to all employees, encourages employees to use a dedicated reimbursement to cover the cost of health related expenses, such as gym fees or mental health appointment costs.
Lastly, in order to promote movement, our cleanroom staff performs stretching sessions before beginning their day and at the end of each shift. All operators participate, and the session has been seen to promote proper warm-up of muscles before beginning the day, and the promotes recovery following their physical day.
Continuing Our Guest Speaker Series
In order to provide additional resources to our employees in support of National Wellness Month, we invited Julie Meninno from Virgin Pulse to host a free guest speaker session that was open to all employees. During this session, she covered topics such as the benefits of the Virgin Pulse program, the importance of attending your yearly physical, and aided employees in setting up their own Virgin Pulse accounts.
The mission of Virgin Pulse is to encourage employees, employers, and health plans to change their lives for good through positive lifestyle improvements.
To learn more strategies to take control of improving your own health and wellness, visit the National Institute of Health’s Emotional Wellness Toolkit.
National Eat Outside Day
August 31st is National Eat outside day, and to end our celebration of National Wellness Month, we decided to encourage employees to enjoy their lunch outside by decorating our outdoor lunch spaces and providing some healthy snack options.
It has been proven that time spent outside can be beneficial for our mental and physical health. According to Healthline, benefits of spending more time outside can include better breathing, mental energy, emotional wellness, improved sleep, reduced depression, and more. The CDC also reports that UV rays can stimulate vitamin D production, which, according to the National Institutes of Health, is responsible for maintaining a healthy mineralized skeleton, and regulation of calcium and phosphate metabolism.
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About HPNE
As the industry needs grow, High Purity New England, Inc. continues to supply the biopharmaceutical industry with a range of innovative products, from drug discovery and development to fill-finish, including their flagship product, custom single-use assemblies, as well as pumps, sensors, bioreactor systems, storage and handling solutions and other single-use solutions. Along with their own manufactured products for the global market, they are also a distributor for more than 18 brands in North America.
