The Impact of Mindfulness in the Workplace

Over the last handful of years, taking on mindfulness techniques in the workplace has been gaining steam for big and small business alike. This begs the question, what exactly is mindfulness? And how can it help both employees and management work toward healthier best practices across the industries?

Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School has defined mindfulness meditation as “the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally.”

KristynaZapletal wrote a piece for Observer entitled, “Neuroscience of Mindfulness: What Happens to Your Brain When You Meditate.” When considering mindfulness, Zapletal acknowledges, “If we embrace the idea that our well-being is a skill that can be cultivated, then it’s obvious that meditation is simply a form of exercise tailored for our brain.”

In this same article, Zapletal references neuroscientist Lara Boyd, a professor for the Department of Physical Therapy at University of British Columbia. Boyd points out that the human brain actually changes to support learning over time.

“Repeat those behaviors that are healthy for your brain and break those behaviors and habits that are not,” Boyd states. “Practice… and build the brain you want.”

Researchers in the field of neurobiology continue to put out evidence that the brain does in fact change based on our daily practices. Good news for us. And yet, in order to reap the vast benefits of mindfulness, we must do just that: practice.

David Gelles, New York Times, author a book entitled, Mindful Work: How Meditation is Changing Business from the Inside Out, sheds more light on the subject of benefits of mindfulness technique for business in his Times’ article, “How to Be More Mindful at Work.”

Gellesreferences the strides forwardhealthcare giant Aetna has made pertaining to training its employees in mindfulness practices. In Gelles’s article, we learn that Aetna employees, led by CEO Mark Bertolini, reported in a survey that engaging in regular mindfulness routines led to a reduction inself-reported stress levels, a noticeable shift in sleep quality, and a reduction in overall pain.

Sandy Abrams, author of Huffington Post’s “Mindfulness is Aetna CEO’s Prescription for Success” is also interested in highlighting advantages Aetna has observed due to its mindfulness investments.

Abrams captures Bertolini’s statements onAetna’s wellness program: “It’s critical to invest in the human machine in trying to eliminate stressors to build resiliency.”

Bertolini continues his statement by adding that in “our world, the only thing that’s going to happen with change is that it’s going to get faster and the organizations that have capable people need to have them be resilient in order to be able to make it and change, adapt and move forward. Part of creating change in an organization is creating this resiliency.”

Let it be noted that Aetna has invested a great deal on resources to build a Mindfulness Center on site in Hartford, Connecticut.

It’s interesting that Bertolini suggests the power of resiliency for the wellbeing of Aetna’s employees. Other scholars working toward the mindfulness movement seem to agree.

Richard J. Davidson, founder and chair for Center for Healthy Minds in Madison, Wisconsin, as well as author of The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live–and How You Can Change Them asserts that “you can modify your Emotional Style to improve your resilience, social intuition, sensitivity to your own internal emotional and physiological states, coping mechanisms, attention, and sense of well-being.”

What Davidson seems to be referencing here is what we may refer to as Emotional Intelligence (EQ), which is also being more widely discussed in business.

In an article written for BCG by Christian Greiser and Jan-Philipp Martini entitled, “Unleashing the Power of Mindfulness in Corporations,” software company SAP links the emotional intelligence idea to a sense of being engaged at work.

Greiser and Martini reference Peter Bostelmann, director of SAP’s global mindfulness practice, who states, “For many [SAP] managers, it has become the new normal to open meetings with short meditations.”

Greiser and Martini make clearerBostelmann’s findings when they write, “participants in the mindfulness program at SAP report increased well-being and higher creativity. What’s more, mindfulness has promoted significant measurable improvements in employee engagement and leadership trust indices.”

The encompassing impact of mindfulness technique, when applied to the lifestyles of business professionals, continues to filter down the publishing pipeline to ring out a unanimous message: mindfulness for the business world is working.

Sources:

Abrams, Sandy
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mindfulness-is-aetna-ceos-prescription-for-success_b_5a4bf577e4b0d86c803c7a1f

Gelles, David
https://www.nytimes.com/guides/well/be-more-mindful-at-work

Greiser, Christian and Martini, Jan-Philipp
https://www.bcg.com/en-us/publications/2018/unleashing-power-of-mindfulness-in-corporations.aspx

Zepletal, Kristyna
https://observer.com/2017/06/neuroscience-mindfulness-brain-when-you-meditate-development/

Gelles, David, Greiser, Christian and Martini, Jan-Philipp
https://www.bcg.com/en-us/publications/2018/unleashing-power-of-mindfulness-in-corporations.aspx

Zepletal, Kristyna
https://observer.com/2017/06/neuroscience-mindfulness-brain-when-you-meditate-development/