The benefits of mindfulness & meditation in the workplace

Personally, I have now been practicing mindfulness & daily meditation for over 10 years.  I am often asked “what are the top 4 things for your health & energy?” and these always include mindfulness & meditation, along with great sleep, great nutrition and morning exercise.

In 2014, energiseYou celebrates its 10^th year in helping companies to improve the health, energy & performance of their employees.  For almost a decade we have brought mindfulness & meditation into the workplace via our workshops, webinars, podcasts & health events.

That aside, I have observed a very interesting polarity with this subject. On one hand, there are so many amazing benefits associated with mindfulness & meditation, such as:

-       Improves happiness

-       Increases your energy levels

-       Improves sleep

-       Makes you more successful in business

-       Helps you manage pressure at work

-       Improves problem solving & creativity

-       Lowers blood pressure & boosts the immune system

-       Reduces negative emotions, stress, anxiety, fear and anger

Yet, on the other hand, there are so few people that actually practice mindfulness & meditation on a daily basis.

So given all of these benefits why is it not practiced more? Here are some of the reasons:

-       People and companies are not fully aware of its transforming benefits

-       Some of these benefits cannot be fully appreciated until they are personally experienced

-       People often expect to be able to quieten the mind and meditate like a Buddhist monk on day one, which just doesn’t happen

-       People often try meditation without being shown how, find it very hard and then immediately give up

-       People often over look mindfulness as a practice because it seems too basic and simple, yet it is in its simplicity that the magic lies.

-       As with many things, people need to be inspired by someone to start.  My personal inspiration to start TM meditation was the film director David Lynch who has been meditating everyday for the past 35 years and he’s still loving it!

So the reasons that mindfulness & meditation should be a key part of your wellbeing programme are because of their profound benefits that can transform overall health & energy. To achieve this we need to address the challenges in the list above to ensure we can actively and regularly embrace the gift of mindfulness & meditation into our lives.

When the going gets tough the tough get going

As employers we rely on our people to succeed. Yes, we need a sound business offering – great products and services – but we also need great employees to deliver top services and develop innovative products.

Let's face it, in the current economic climate the large majority of organisations are operating with a relatively tight budget and a slimmed down workforce. So when the work picks up or large projects come in it is not uncommon for us to rely on our employees to have to pick up extra slack until we can justify the extra head count.

At times like this we need to be able to rely on our people to take a ‘can-do’ and ‘will-do’ approach and it is our strong and engaged employees that will work hard to meet this challenge.

Why? Because engaged employees value their organisations and therefore are generally more motivated to put in the extra effort and want to support the organisation when things get tough. However, they can only do this to the best of their ability if they are in good health and have the resilience skills to withstand pressure.

So if we are to rely on our employees to get going when things get tough or a little difficult we need to ensure that they are not only engaged but also healthy and able to withstand the pressure.

What does this mean in practice? Employee engagement does provide some of the answers in terms of motivating staff and improving performance but it doesn’t provide all of them. Employee wellbeing needs to be firmly on the agenda – organisations need to prioritise and invest in the health of their workforce, putting interventions in place to support their wellbeing.

Investing in the health of your staff is not only good for employee wellbeing but it is good for business. 

Employers need to focus more on the positives

The large majority of us tend to focus on what is wrong in our lives, both at home and in the workplace. This needs to change if we are to be successful in creating a positive working environment where people are able to achieve their potential.

Think about what your leaders and managers focus the majority of their time on. You will probably find they give more time and attention to problems, rather than focusing on the positive things that are happening within their team and organisation. For example, managers tend to focus more time on what employees are not doing or what is not being done properly instead of sharing all the positive things that have been achieved.

This happens naturally and is what our mind is trained to do. Think about the ‘fight or flight’ response, our body's automatic response prepares us to fight or run from danger or a threat. But times have changed. We don’t need to be on the look-out for danger in the same way we did years ago.

It is important to remember that problems create problems and therefore focusing all of our attention on what is wrong will have a detrimental effect on business and our employees. It creates a ball of negative energy that just attracts more of the same.

This negative focus will eventually lead to a hostile working environment and a disengaged workforce, which will have a negative impact on both productivity and the happiness of our employees.

It’s time for leaders and managers to take a stand. We need to focus on what is positive within our organisation and training our people to do the same. By this I don’t mean we should ignore problems, I simply mean we need to turn most of our attention to what is good and build on this.

This is not easy and our mind will quite often naturally default back to focus on problems and negative things that surround us. It will take time but this shift needs to happen if we are going to attract and retain the best people and succeed as organisations.

Mind management is at the heart of everything we do.  Crack this, and everything else becomes easy.

Click here for more information about our mind management workshops.

Creating a healthy mind really can boost success

It’s not just famous athletes and celebrities that are reaping the success of mind management and meditation.

If you listen to any ‘great’ leader they attribute much of their success to having a healthy mindset and adopting the right attitude. Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and Bill Ford have all spoken about their use of meditation and the benefits associated with creating a healthy mindset.

Now, if we can get our employees to do the same then we are really onto a winner.

A healthy mind offers huge benefits to us as individuals in terms of increasing happiness, improving creativity and aiding weight loss etc. But it also offers huge benefits to our businesses.

People who manage their mind effectively are more successful at work because they have higher energy levels, are generally much healthier and they are able to handle with pressure more effectively.

Our research, of over 4,500 individuals, shows the large majority of people score just 42% on the key drivers of positive mind management. This highlights a huge opportunity for us as employers to improve performance within our businesses.

In today’s nonstop 24/7 digital world, we lead such busy lives and as a result our mind rarely stops thinking. Most people’s habits mean they are using technology non-stop from the minute they open their eyes to the minute they close them at night. This over stimulation of mind and body can drain energy and cause poor health, such as sleep problems and mental health fatigue.

By helping our employees to manage their mind effectively we can really improve performance. 

To find out how you can create healthy mind and body in the workplace click here and sign up to my free 30 minute webinar today.

This is taking place on Wednesday 15 May 2013, at 12pm 2013. I will cover:

- How supporting your employees' health & energy can improve business performance
- Why your staff need a healthy mind & body at work
- The 7 essential ingredients to create a healthy body
- Innovative mind management practices to improve performance
- Practical steps to improve the health & energy of your staff this summer

Say goodbye to Blue Monday

Monday 21st January 2013 is apparently the most depressing day of the year, due to the combined effect of Christmas blues, lack of money, lack of natural sunlight, broken New Year resolutions and it being a Monday.

However, Blue Monday is only bad if you allow it to be. I challenge you to go against what some of the experts and say goodbye to Blue Monday. Make it a great day for you and everyone around you – your colleagues, friends and family.

By taking a positive approach to our daily tasks and challenges we really do have the opportunity to say goodbye to Blue Monday and make 2013 a fantastic year.

The key is to develop and maintain a healthy mindset. So, take today as an example – it is snowing heavily today and as a result a couple of people have cancelled meetings that I had scheduled. This could be seen as really negative but it’s just meant I’ve had to rearrange my day.

Yes, the snow causes some problems but it only falls occasionally here in London and it looks beautiful outside. Also, by rearranging my meetings I am able to use my time today to focus attention on other projects.

The key to happiness and success, both inside and outside the workplace, is to focus on developing a positive mindset.

Start doing this today. Surround yourself with people who energise you, start speaking more positively and consistently do more of the things that positively affect your health, energy and happiness.

Make 2013 your best year yet….

HR professionals need to think about themselves…

A recent research report, published by vocational training organisation, City and Guilds, has found HR professionals are some of the unhappiest across the UK workforce.

We know that employee wellbeing often falls to the HR team to manage. The challenge for some HR professionals is that they are so busy looking after the needs of their people that they can forget about themselves.

I often talk about the benefits associated with a healthy, happy and motivated workforce. But this really is essential for our personal wellbeing and if we are to improve the performance of our businesses.

Now is the time for HR professionals to factor their needs into the wellbeing equation. Here are some tips to help you get started…

Replace the word stress with resilience

Stress is a word that is so overused, both inside and outside the workplace. This is not to say it is not a serious issue – in fact new research from the Group Risk Development (GRiD) shows employee stress has been voted the number one risk to employee wellbeing.

But if you are to limit the negative impact associated with, and caused, by stress in the workplace you need to move away from focusing on it so much and think about how you can deal with pressure and become more resilient.

Invest in yourself

Invest in your physical and emotional energy wisely. Develop ways to ensure you are more resilient and make sure you build in recovery time so their energy isn't drained – for expert advice click here to secure your place on our live webinar, on the 12 December.

Try and give yourself 20 minutes of ‘stop time’ per day. Try sitting in a relaxing place in silence and focus on your breathing or listen to some relaxing music.

To check your health and energy click here and take our free online, 10 minute, questionnaire.

Believe

Believe good things can happen. This will give you the motivation to want to make them happen and to be persistent.

Be positive

It may sound very simple but very few people get this right – consistently do more of the things that positively affect you and do less of the things that affect you negatively.

Stay focused

Stay focused on what's important rather than allowing problems or concerns about what might happen to take you off course. 

You can improve your focus and energy by trying to do one task at a time.

                                                        
Make wellbeing part of your culture
Work with your leaders, managers and HR team to make wellbeing part of your organisational culture. Ensure they understand that people need space to perform, relax and take time out to re-energise if they are to give the most at work and your managers need to recognise and support this.

Senior executives cannot afford to ignore their own wellbeing

I have been working with senior executives for years now, helping them to improve the wellbeing of their employees and helping them as individuals improve their own health and wellbeing.

Many leaders do recognise the need to invest in the wellbeing of their workforce but all too often they ignore their own needs - this not only has a negative impact on their own health but also the health of their organisation.

It’s true that senior executives are there to lead and need to hold everything together but this does not mean that they should ignore their own wellbeing needs. In fact, Ben Wilmott, Head of Public Policy, at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) recently told the Financial Times that it is no longer good enough for senior executives to pass stress on. He said that by failing to deal with their stress this will in turn create a toxic culture and will undermine performance.

I agree with Ben. We know that by improving employee wellbeing organisations can reap the benefits in terms of the increased productivity – individuals are more energised and motivated to achieve goals.

It doesn’t matter whether you are just entering the workplace or whether you are at the very top, the fact of the matter is that someone with more energy and positivity is going to be much more beneficial for the organisation. It is this that has a positive impact on bottom line.

The CIPD’s 2011 Employee Absence survey finds stress is now the top cause of long-term absence and senior executives are not immune to the impact of stress. In fact Michael Sinclair, City-based psychologist and author of Fear and Self Loathing in the City, raises real concerns about the pressure high-flying executives in the City face and the fact more CEOs are being signed off work.

There is a real need to help those at the top as well as the average worker. Individuals, whether they are at the top or bottom of the food chain, can only take such pressure and ignore their own wellbeing for a short period of time before it starts to impact on those around them.

We have all seen it in the press – senior executives burning out. Failing to address the health and wellbeing of those at the very top will have a detrimental affect on the business long-term. By giving those at the top the tools to improve their health and become more resilient they will be in a much stronger position to lead their organisation.