How to Support Digital Wellness at Work
Authors: Jessica Grossmeier, PhD, MPH; Lygeia Ricciardi, EdM; Caitlin Guilfoyle, MBA
May 1 marked the 7th annual Digital Wellness Day — a global movement that has reached over 17 million people in 64+ countries. It kicked off Mental Health Awareness Month, and this year it felt more relevant than ever.
Nearly 70% of office workers spend more than 7 hours a day on screens — with symptoms of excessive screen time costing the U.S. an estimated $73 billion per year in lost productivity and wellbeing. But, this isn’t an anti-tech conversation. The Digital Wellness Institute, one of the organizations behind this movement, is clear about that. Digital wellness is not about less technology. It’s about more intentional use of technology, and building a healthier relationship with the tools we use in our work and beyond.
Why This Matters Right Now
- 62% of US adults experience digital burnout either occasionally or regularly, while 31% admit they rarely or never intentionally unplug.
- 83% of workers globally rank work-life balance as their #1 job priority, above pay for the first time in over two decades.
- Nearly 33% of workers are interrupted by a digital workplace notification every 15 minutes, amounting to more than 160 digital distractions per workday.
- The average person now spends 6 hours and 38 minutes online every day — roughly 42% of their waking hours.
- High levels of AI oversight have been linked with 12% higher mental fatigue and 19% greater information overload.
And at the same time, work is accelerating. AI is expanding what’s possible, and expectations around availability, responsiveness, and output are rising. Though AI can support wellness at work by minimizing time-consuming tasks or targeting wellness support, it can also increase the level of pressure employees experience. That’s not likely to change. What we can change is how people sustain themselves to manage it.
As digital work becomes more complex, including through the growing use of AI tools, digital wellness also means paying attention to cognitive load: how much context switching, monitoring, and responsiveness people are being asked to sustain. Right now, many teams are operating in a state of constant connectivity, with no shared agreements about what that even means. No norms around response times. No culture around when it’s okay to be offline. That vacuum is costing people.
What Digital Wellness Is
The Digital Wellness Institute defines it as “the optimum state of health, personal fulfillment, and social satisfaction that each individual using technology is capable of achieving.” Their framework, the Digital Flourishing® Wheel, breaks this into eight dimensions: productivity, environment, communication, relationships, mental health, physical health, artificial intelligence, and digital citizenship. For organizational and team leaders, the most actionable areas tend to be productivity, communication, and environment.
Free Resources You Can Use Right Now
The Digital Wellness Institute offers a free Digital Flourishing® Check-Up at digitalflourishing.com. It’s a scientifically validated survey that gives people a score across each dimension of digital wellbeing, along with personalized, free tool recommendations. It’s been developed and tested by researchers including Dr. Sophie Janicke-Bowles, a professor at Chapman University and Research Director at the Digital Wellness Institute.
This is a great tool to share with your team, whether you’re kicking off a campaign, running a lunch-and-learn, or just want to give people something concrete to do on their own. It’s also a useful intake tool for team leaders. You can survey your team, see where the gaps are, and build programming around the actual needs rather than guessing.
Practical Moves That Make a Difference
The 2026 Digital Wellness Day Playbook includes specific, research-backed tips organized by dimension. Here are some of the most actionable ones for workplace contexts.
On Communication
Establish a communication charter with your team. This doesn’t need to be complicated. It’s just a shared document that lays out expected working hours, preferred channels, and when people are actually expected to be reachable. Teams that do this report a significant reduction in always-on anxiety. Pair it with an alternate contact system for people when they’re on vacation, and suddenly “being unavailable” stops feeling like a liability.
Productivity
Block off time on your calendar for focused, uninterrupted work. Encourage people to check email at set intervals — late morning, after lunch, late afternoon — rather than constantly. Tools like Freedom.io can help people build the habit of mono-tasking (as opposed to multi-tasking). And yes, turning off non-essential notifications is still one of the most effective moves anyone can make.
Environment
Help people create clear signals between work mode and non-work mode, especially for anyone working from home. This can be as simple as closed doors, designated spaces, or using “do not disturb” settings consistently. The concept they call “digital feng shui” — a balance between being always connected and intentionally disconnecting — is worth introducing to your teams.
Meetings
Zoom fatigue is real and measurable. Small changes make a difference: turning off self-view, using walking calls when cameras aren’t needed, mixing up formats. Encourage people to start meetings with a brief wellbeing check-in. It sounds small, but when used consistently and authentically, it can help normalize conversations about capacity and make it easier for people to say when they are overwhelmed.
What You Can Do This Month
Digital Wellness Day was on May 1, but the playbook is designed for year-round use. Here’s a simple sequence if you want to build something for your organization this month:
- Share the Digital Flourishing® survey with your team and invite them to take it individually. digitalflourishing.com
- Host a conversation around one dimension of the wheel. Communication is often the easiest entry point because it’s something teams can actually change together, not just individually.
- Draft a communication charter. Even a rough, working draft creates accountability and opens up a conversation that most teams have never had out loud. This matters because digital wellness is rarely solved through individual self-control alone. Shared norms reduce ambiguity and help make healthy boundaries legitimate within the team.
The Bigger Picture
As workplaces adopt more AI-enabled tools, this conversation will only become more important. Healthier digital cultures will depend not just on access to technology, but on how thoughtfully that technology is integrated into work. What makes Digital Wellness Day worth paying attention to isn’t the one-day post or the hashtag. It’s the underlying shift it’s pointing to: the idea that how we use technology at work is a cultural and organizational design decision, not just a personal one. As Nina Hersher, Executive Director of Digital Wellness Day, puts it: “We have the power to utilize technology in a way that fuels rather than fatigues us.”
About the Authors
Jessica Grossmeier is an award-winning researcher, advisor, speaker, and author of two books as well as Chair of the GWI Workplace Wellbeing Initiative.
Lygeia Ricciardi is the Founder and CEO of AdaRose, which provides technology-based workplace wellness and team connection programs to employers.
Caitlin Guilfoyle is a Modern Work Leader, Leadership Coach and Speaker who helps organizations create healthier, more human-centered ways of working that support wellbeing and sustainable performance.
** Disclaimer **
The blog submissions featured on this site represent the research and opinions of the individual authors. The Global Wellness Institute and the Workplace Wellbeing Initiative are not responsible for the content provided. We serve as an outlet for workplace wellbeing thought leaders to share their insights. The views expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Global Wellness Institute or the Workplace Wellbeing Initiative. Readers are encouraged to consult with a qualified healthcare professional for specific health concerns.
