Perimenopause and Hot Desking: Making Shared Office Spaces Work for You
Hot desking during perimenopause presents real challenges. Learn practical strategies for managing hot flashes, brain fog, and fatigue in a shared office environment.
Why Hot Desking Feels Harder During Perimenopause
Hot desking means starting each day without a guaranteed personal space, and during perimenopause that loss of control can feel magnified. You cannot pre-cool your spot, cannot guarantee a desk near a window you can open, and cannot leave a fan plugged in overnight. When hot flashes strike unpredictably, the inability to personalise your immediate environment adds a layer of stress that compounds the physical discomfort. Brain fog also makes the mental overhead of finding a seat, logging in to a new machine, and re-establishing a routine each morning more taxing than it sounds.
Arriving Early to Claim the Right Spot
One of the simplest tactics is arriving slightly earlier than your colleagues. This gives you the pick of desks nearest to air conditioning vents, exterior windows, or quieter corners away from busy walkways. Consistent temperature and lower noise levels both help with concentration when brain fog is a factor. If your workplace uses a desk-booking app, book the same cluster of desks as often as possible so the environment becomes familiar even when the specific seat changes. Familiarity reduces cognitive load and helps you settle into focused work more quickly.
Building a Portable Comfort Kit
Because you cannot customise the desk itself, your bag becomes your toolkit. A small rechargeable fan, a cooling facial mist spray, and a reusable cold water bottle are the core essentials. A lightweight cardigan covers the other end of the temperature swing when air conditioning overcorrects. A pair of noise-cancelling earbuds helps you block out open-plan noise on days when concentration is difficult. Keep these items together in a dedicated pouch so you are not searching for them when you need them most.
Talking to Your Manager About Reasonable Adjustments
In the UK, perimenopause symptoms can qualify as a disability under the Equality Act 2010 in cases where they substantially affect day-to-day activities. That means employers have a duty to consider reasonable adjustments. Requesting a reserved desk in a cooler area, permission to use a personal fan, or flexibility on arrival times to secure a preferred spot are all reasonable asks. You do not need to disclose extensive medical detail. A brief conversation noting that temperature sensitivity and fatigue are affecting your work is usually enough to start the process. HR teams are increasingly familiar with perimenopause as a workplace issue.
Tracking Symptoms to Spot Office Triggers
It can be hard to separate general perimenopause symptoms from those that are specifically worse on office days. Logging symptoms alongside notes about your environment, including desk location, temperature, and noise levels, can reveal patterns over time. If hot flashes are consistently worse on hot-desking days versus working from home, that is useful information to share with a GP or occupational health adviser. Apps like PeriPlan let you log symptoms and track patterns day by day, which can make those conversations more concrete and productive.
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