10 Benefits of Mindfulness at Work
There was a time when mindfulness and meditation were seen as eccentric and obscure. Not any more. Mindfulness has moved into the mainstream – and into the workplace, and the results are impressive.
With increasingly busy lifestyles, where many couples juggle hectic work schedules, parenting, financial obligations, the need to stay fit, and deal with instant access to vast amounts of digital information, the need to identify and deal with stress is becoming critical. Thankfully, there is a simple solution. And the beautiful thing about it is, all we need to do is… NOTHING!
Here, we look at 10 benefits of Mindfulness in the workplace, and why they are driving a new work-life balance.
- Stress Prevention/Treatment
Whisper it no more – stress is finally being openly discussed. Practicing mindfulness in the workplace has been proven to reduce and prevent stress, which improves performance and boosts the bottom line.
Dr Elizabeth Hoge, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, says mindful meditation makes perfect sense for treating anxiety and stress. “People have a problem dealing with distracting thoughts that have too much power. They can’t distinguish between a problem solving thought and a nagging worry that has no benefit.”
When we declutter our thought process we eliminate stress, because stress by definition is when we think we have more problems than we have solutions. Reducing these unnecessary thoughts allows us to focus only on the task at hand, ignoring the cluttered thinking which raises stress levels.
2. Ability to Deal with Illness
Mindfulness may not be able to directly heal the illness, but studies have proven that a mindfulness based approach to dealing with symptoms makes dealing with illness more manageable. Studies of mindfulness among cancer patients for example have been encouraging. The answer may be connected to what Deepak Chopra refers to as the mind-body relationship, or the power of positive thought.
3. Improved Management Perfomance
If managers are multi-tasking to ensure that employees are happy and productive, they are already busy. Adding unnecessary thought processes by attempting to micro manage, creates confusion not only for the manager, but for the resources he/she manages. Clarity of management process and effective delegation is one of the main benefits of mindfulness in the workplace.
4. Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is critically important for employers and employees. Unhappy staff generally think about moving on. This can be passive or active. If active, the company is in danger of losing key resources which they have invested in, and the resultant staff turnover burdens time and budgets. Passively looking to move on is in many ways worse, as it directly impacts performance and ultimately, the all important bottom line. If employees are constantly thinking about being elsewhere, concentration levels drop. This in turn requires a greater level of micro-management and human resource intervention. Mindfulness keeps us focused on the present moment. This has been proven to improve performance.
5. Reduced Procrastination
Procrastination happens when we worry about a particular task to such an extent that we avoid this unwanted feeling by distracting ourselves with other tasks. Worse still, we do nothing, and become entangled in anxiety about the task at hand. Mindfulness focuses our attention on the task at hand, reducing the likelihood that we will sidestep tasks by becoming distracted or stressed.
6. Neuroplasticity
When practicing mindfulness, every time we complete a task, we are sending messages to our brain, telling it “Ive got this.” When we next begin that task, we find that we already have confidence in our ability to complete it successfully. This confidence and clarity allows us to free our minds to explore better ways to complete tasks. We go from repetition to refining. Thanks to mindfulness, we have increased our capacity to learn new tasks. Which brings us to the next benefit…
7. Creativity and Innovation
We are often our own worst critics. All too often, we allow unnecessarily negative thoughts to clutter our thinking. We might never share an innovative idea, because we have talked ourselves down by introducing doubt. Will my boss think this is a waste of time? Will my co-workers think I am trying to win favor? These questions and more are the result of cluttered thinking, by recalling past instances and projecting what the creativity will mean in the future. Mindfulness brings the benefit of clearing our thinking, eliminating the ‘what if’ type of negative questions, and allows us to focus on the innovative thought with greater clarity and self-assuredness. This is where we exhibit greater creativity.
8. Better Communications
Sometimes, overthinking the reason behind a question, can completely change the true nature of the answer. And sometimes, we are so busy seeking reasons for a question, that we fail to listen effectively, and therefore misunderstand the question. When we practice mindfulness, we have the ability to focus only on the question at hand, in a factual manner. This not only improves the timelines of communications, but leads to greater clarity among co-workers and management. When we deal with facts, we can contribute in a more transparent and efficient manner.
9. Greatly Improved Work Life Balance
Have you ever noticed that time seems to go so much more quickly on the weekends? Have you ever craved Friday for several days, only to celebrate it’s arrival by falling asleep on the couch? A healthy work-life balance allows us to distribute our energy more evenly throughout the seven day week. We have more energy for our weekends, therefore we maximize our much needed time away, and return to work on Monday feeling much more refreshed, and ready and willing to perform at our best. Mindfulness, if practiced regularly, knows not if a day is a week day or a weekend day. We become more consistent when moving between our work life and our personal time, therefore our performance and enjoyment of both roles greatly improves as a result.
10. Improved General Health
Mindfulness has mostly been credited for its benefits in maintaining positive mental health. But recent research has suggested that practicing mindfulness regularly can also greatly improve general health. One study has found that Mindfulness encourages behavioral patterns conducive to better general health. It suggests that the practice nurtures a psychological change in motivation such as being aware of the importance of regular check-ups, getting regular exercise, being mindful of negative impacts on health such as nicotine or alcohol and spotting symptoms early enough to be treatable (Jacobs, Wollny, Sim, & Horsch, 2016).
Another study found physiological benefits of regularly practicing mindfulness, such as improved cardiovascular health and a healthier body mass index (Loucks, Britton, Howe, Eaton, & Buka, 2015).
Mindfulness has also been associated with lower blood pressure (Tomfohr, Pung, Mills, & Edwards, 2015).
The above health benefits are not only great news for individuals who practice mindfulness, but also for employers, who see the benefit of encouraging a culture of mindfulness in the workplace.