Mindful Work

For many people, work hours have become blurred and things like checking business emails outside of office hours have become commonplace. With this change, stress has become a considerable risk, not only to employees, but to companies at large. Shockingly, according to the World Health Organization, stress costs American businesses as much as $300 billion a year.

To deal with this challenge, more and more companies are catching on to mindfulness. You can think of mindfulness as the easiest form of meditation. Basically, it means paying attention to the present moment and noticing your thoughts without judgment.

So how does mindfulness relate to work? Simply put, it makes dealing with issues at work easier.

Mindfulness has many benefits, which we will delve into in the blinks that follow. But what all of these benefits have in common is that they make us more self-aware, train our focus and increase clarity. All of which are valuable qualities to have in the workplace.

Mindfulness allows you to step back from the problem and observe it so you can deal with it more objectively and reach solutions more easily. For example, working with a colleague who slacks off can make you livid, but being mindful can help you realize the reasons for their behavior. Perhaps they are tired because they have a newborn baby, and talking to them about it can solve the problem.

As a new generation of companies start to understand the benefits of mindfulness, a mindful work culture is already gaining momentum.

Even multinational companies have cottoned on. General Mills, for example, was a pioneer in providing mindfulness training during work time. The training was initiated by Janice Marturano, who began practicing mindfulness after dealing with personal and professional stress. Soon, hundreds of General Mills employees were participating, and now all of the firm’s buildings have meditation rooms.