5 Benefits of Mindfulness at Work
Work is hard. Even if you love where you work, love what you do, and get paid a million bucks a year, you’d probably rather be out trout fishing or laying on the beach with an umbrella drink in your hand. The constant pressures of the workplace can eat away at your physical and mental heath.
That’s why companies like GetUWired, as well as heavy hitters like Google, Aetna and Target, have instituted mindfulness training in their offices. After all, it’s good for profits. Healthy, happy employees are more productive, less likely to take sick days, more focused, and let’s face it … just easier to get along with.
If you’ve been thinking of instituting mindfulness training at your place of business, read on. Here are just a few of the myriad benefits of mindfulness at work.
Mindfulness at work helps us re-engage
Work somewhere long enough, and you’ll discover a pattern of repeating the same tasks, over and over. That’s a tough environment for stimulating creativity and “outside the box” problem solving.
A 2015 Gallup poll revealed that 51% of American workers are “not engaged” at work. Think that’s not your workplace? It probably is, at least now and then.
Mindfulness at work helps us “get out of our own heads,” where problems with boredom and stale thinking originate. When we can learn to quiet the noise in our minds, it leads to enhanced creativity, fresh perspectives on old problems, and re-energizes us with new ideas.
Mindfulness increases emotional intelligence
Companies live and die by how well their people work together – and with their customers. Emotional intelligence is a huge ingredient in the recipe of a cohesive team. Intuitively knowing how to speak to someone, when a person is having an “off day,” and being able to make connections with others are key business skills – and they are all heightened by mindfulness.
Too often, our own moods, distractions, prejudices, and issues get in the way of our own inborn emotional intelligence. Remember how intuitive you were as a child? How easy it was to make friends? Emotional intelligence is natural to humans, but for some of us, the “noise” of life drowns that out. Mindfulness helps us reconnect to our insight and intuition, which opens the doors for better emotional intelligence.
Mindfulness boosts memory and focus
A good way to think about mindfulness at work is that it is a reset for the brain, sort of like a nap, but you don’t actually go to sleep. With mindfulness practice, you learn to ignore distractions and give your brain a much-needed break. This act of refreshing your mind, resting it, and disregarding intrusive thoughts, can do wonders for memory and focus.
Mindfulness helps you find meaning in your work
Not all jobs are glorious or life-changing. In fact, most aren’t. But through meditation and mindfulness, we become more accustomed to the idea that meaning is intrinsic – it’s not always linked to tangible results. Meaning can be drawn from the act itself. When we look at our work as valuable and meaningful in and of itself, not only are we happier and more fulfilled, but we learn to enjoy the process as much as the results.
Mindfulness leads to lower stress
Stress comes from how we react to situations, not from the situations themselves. Mindfulness training includes things such as controlled breathing exercises, stress-reduction techniques, and emotional regulation that enhance stress-coping skills.
Increased stress has been linked to more incidents of illness, lower productivity, decreased creativity and problem-solving abilities, and a host of long-term physical effects. The better your staff is able to deal with stress in positive ways, the better off your company will be.
Work with a staff of mindful marketers!
Get started today with a free 1-hour consult. Just give us a call at 877-236-9094 or visit our homepage at www.GetUWired.com.