7 Reasons Why Everyone Should Meditate at Work
Introduction
Some of our life’s dreams are made possible through work, it pays the bills, fills our belly’s and funds our vacations. Yet, working day and night to make these things a reality can be a physical and psychological burden. The CDC reports that professionals that neglect their physical and mental health can suffer from depression, stress, and anxiety, not to mention physical health problems like migraines, lower back pain, or severe eye strain. One of the many ways in which the modern professional can take care of their health is through meditation.
1. It Diminishes Stress
This one should not come as a surprise. Stress is a serious problem in modern work environments. About 80% of US workers report having stress issues at work, with half stating they need help managing it.
According to the American Psychological Association, “Psychological scientists have found that mindfulness (a form of meditation) influences two different stress pathways in the brain, changing brain structures and activity in regions associated with attention and emotion regulation.” In other words, meditation can help you mitigate that inner drive to throw the coffee machine out the window while screaming at the top of your lungs.
2. It Improves Work Relations
Social interactions and inter-employee relations are an extremely important aspect of health and wellness in the workplace (especially the virtual one) but also the key to productive collaboration. Group meditation sessions are a great way to improve work relations, doing wonders when it comes to promoting social interactions and building a better team spirit amidst collaborators, all the while fostering a more positive work environment. We have been organizing online group meditations for companies for years with great success and our clients can testify to this.
3. It Helps Your Immune System
There are few things that are as bad as having to work while sick or take a sick day and have to deal with the aftermath of the following day. And yet, not everyone actually has the time in their routine to ensure that their body’s defenses are at peak efficiency. Luckily meditation can help with this as well, being a very convenient way to take care of your immune system. How? According to research, meditating stimulates the region of your brain responsible for the immune system on the left hemisphere, all the while boosting your antibodies.
4. It Helps You Make Decisions
Regular meditation places you in a more clear and calm mental state that turns decision-making at work into a smoother process. Mindfulness meditation, in particular, is known to improve one’s ability to focus and concentrate on the here and now, which lets you see potentially stressful situations through a fuller and more rational lens. So, whenever you have to make a hard call, try taking five minutes to breathe deeply and bring yourself into a more mindful state.
5. It Maintains Your Mental Health
A recent study by the NCCIH had subjects participate in an eight-week mindfulness meditation program in order to observe its effects on their mental health. The end result was that daily meditation had an incredibly positive impact on the patient’s moods, increasing their capacity to feel empathy, while also diminishing their stress levels. It has also proved to be an effective way to treat insomnia and its related issues for many of the test subjects.
6. It Makes You More Resilient
Meditating can also make you a lot more resistant to stress and emotionally charged situations. Be it high demands, accumulated tension, extra-professional worries, it takes a certain grade of toughness to deal with the struggles of office life, and meditation makes tackling these issues a lot easier.
The designer, Lindsey Adelman, testifies to how incorporating meditation into the company’s identity positively impacted her co-workers’ resilience: Over time, the people who stick with it didn’t take things personally, they take feedback easily, and they don’t react to pretty much anything—it’s kind of a superhuman strength, not to react.”
7. It Boosts Your Memory
Researchers have also successfully found a correlation between meditation and good memory. Regular meditation has the power to radically restructure the brain in positive ways that make recalling information or past events a lot easier. In a work environment where one may be required to store all kinds of information, this is a welcome ability.
Conclusion
It doesn’t take a genius to see all the ways in which incorporating meditation into the work environment can make it a better place for everyone. It generates, mentally, and physically healthier professionals that are better equipped to face whatever challenges are looming over the horizon, have better relationships with colleagues, and are more receptive to feedback.
So, if you are on the market for a more positive work environment, you can always contact The Meditation Office through the information provided on this very website.
