Why Zoom meetings are bad for your brain (and you reallly, really need an office chair)

Emma Morley is concerned about our brains. And our backs. An interior designer who specialises in office spaces - once commercial now often residential - she fears an epidemic not only of mental health issues at the end of this pandemic, but of back issues too as we spend hours on unsuitable chairs in badly lit corners of cramped spaces.

home working pink office via trifle creative

The founder of Trifle Creative, Emma did a drama degree and has always been fascinated by how our surroundings change our mood - beginning with theatre audiences reacting to the lights going down and later working for an experiential events company. When they asked her to redesign the office she realised she had found her niche.

But more of that shortly. Firstly those Zoom meetings. "Essentially they confuse our brains," she says to me  - on the telephone.

"When we are in the same room we look at each other and we observe the body language. On the phone we know it's just about listening and our brains understa…