Look at moi, look at moi. Why all that camera action legit sucks our energy, zoom fatigue—it’s real.

Have you been feeling more tired since working from home? Spending a lot of time on zoom calls? Blaming your lack of energy and general feelings of meh-ness all on being locked-down, isolated, drinking more vino and COVID?
Well, this might not be the case, or at least there is something else within our control we need to think about.

Even as more people are logging onto popular video chat platforms to connect with colleagues, family and friends during the COVID-19 pandemic, Stanford researchers have a warning for you: Those video calls are likely tiring you out.
Zoom figure. It’s a real thing, and now it’s backed by research out of Standford.

Why does this matters? Energy is critical to producing results, our productivity and our ability to get stuff done. Energy is our emotion in motion, aka our emotional state, and our emotions create our quality of life.

Here are the four causes of Zoom fatigue and their simple fixes.

Cause: Excessive amounts of close-up eye contact is highly intense. When we are using Zoom for many, many hours, it puts us in a hyper-aroused state.
The solution: Minimise the zoom window relative to the monitor size.

Cause: Seeing yourself during video chats constantly in real-time is fatiguing. When we see a reflection of ourselves, we are more critical of our appearance. It can be taxing and stressful, and there’s lots of research showing that there are negative emotional consequences to seeing yourself in a mirror.
The solution? Use the hide self-view button.

Cause: Video chats dramatically reduce our usual mobility. We need distance and flexibility. There’s growing research now that says when people are moving, they’re performing better cognitively,
The solution? Design your environment pre-zoom call. Think about the room you’re working in, your proximity to the camera so you can get up and move around — moving around every hour is critical to wellbeing, productivity and energy levels.

Cause: The cognitive load is much higher in video chats. In regular face-to-face interaction, nonverbal communication is quite natural, and each of us naturally makes and interprets gestures and nonverbal cues subconsciously. But in video chats, we have to work harder to send and receive signals.

The solution? Go audio only during long meetings, including turning away from the monitor entirely.

Want more energy? Read the full article here.