Why We Need Mindfulness at Work
In
this age of constant distractions and long hours, it’s difficult to find even a
few minutes of time to reflect. Yet finding that time and space can help ease
the stresses of your demanding working life.
Peter
Jaret: First, what exactly is mindfulness?
Jason
Marsh: Mindfulness describes a
moment-to-moment awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations.
It’s a state of being attuned to what’s going on in your body and in the
surrounding environment—being in the present moment without thinking about the
future or what happened in the past. An essential component of mindfulness is
acceptance. Whatever you’re thinking and feeling at that moment is neither
right nor wrong. You notice it, and accept it, and move onto the next moment
without getting caught up in judging what you’re thinking or feeling.
Peter
Jaret: How is mindfulness different from meditation?
JM: They’re
practically synonymous but they’re not exactly the same. Mindfulness meditation is one form
of meditation, but it’s not the only form. And formal meditation is one way to
practice mindfulness, but it’s not the only way. Once you learn mindfulness
skills, you can practice them at almost any moment of the day—sitting at your
computer, stuck in traffic, even eating. In fact, there has been a lot of
interest in promoting mindful eating as a way to
help people be more aware of what they eat, to enjoy each bite more, and even
to control how much they eat. And there’s also growing interest in using the
practice of mindfulness in the workplace to provide a buffer against stress.
JM: There are
many. Some of the earliest studies, which involved the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program
founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the
University of Massachusetts Medical School, showed that mindfulness can help
ease stress. Mindfulness fosters positive emotions and helps provide resilience
against negative experiences. There’s also evidence that the practice of
mindfulness promotes empathy and a sense of compassion.
Indeed,
brain imaging research shows that a half
hour of mindfulness meditation a day increases the density of gray matter in
parts of the brain associated with memory, stress, and empathy. Finally,
mindfulness seems to increase concentration and focus. Research looking
specifically at mindfulness in the workplace is relatively new. But there’s
good reason to think it makes employees more satisfied and less stressed.
A 2014 study of employees
at the Dow Chemical Company, for instance, showed that mindfulness training
increased vigor, lowered stress, and gave employees a greater sense of
resiliency. Preliminary studies suggest that a program in mindfulness also can
increase productivity and reduce the number of sick days.
PJ:
Are there specific health benefits to mindfulness practice?
JM: An early,
small study suggests that
mindfulness may help boost the immune system. By serving as a buffer against
stress, mindfulness may also lower the risk of heart disease. A 2015 study
looked at people who score high on a mindfulness awareness test, and found that they had a healthier cardiovascular risk
profile than people with lower scores. One small pilot program also found that
mindfulness training helped decrease depression.
PJ:
Some tech companies have been criticized for harsh working conditions. Could
mindfulness training become a “Band-Aid” fix to serious workplace problems?
JM: I think
that’s definitely a risk. But given that stress is a reality in many people’s
working lives, I think mindfulness can be an effective tool to buffer its
negative effects. And ideally, mindfulness may even help change workplaces for
the better. Research suggests that mindfulness training helps make people
more compassionate and empathetic toward
others. By improving the way people relate to one another, ideally it can
change corporate culture for the better, creating a more supportive, friendlier
workplace with better relationships. In many organizations, there are bigger,
systemic changes that need to be made, but I don’t think that instituting a
mindfulness program will prevent those changes from happening. At the least, a
mindfulness program provides workers with some relief from stress and anxiety
while they campaign for systemic changes; at best, it helps to catalyze those
bigger systemic changes.
By Peter Jaret
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_we_need_mindfulness_at_work?utm_source=GGSC+Newsletter+-+November++2015&utm_campaign=GG+Newsletter++-+November+2015&utm_medium=email
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