Supporting Employee Mental Health with Mindfulness Benefits

What is mindfulness, exactly, and how it can be beneficial in a work setting? Quite simply, mindfulness is presence and compassion, which can be found through meditation practice, breath practice, yoga practice, or simple but profound cognitive reframing techniques. Sometimes repeating a simple word, such as is taught in the RAIN technique, can help to facilitate mindfulness.

Part of its most profound and well-studied benefits is the role of mindfulness in reducing stress. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services identifies the following reasons people feel stress, many of which occur during the work day.

• Needing to do a lot in a short amount of time
• Having a lot of small problems such as traffic jams or running late
• Work presentations
• Arguments and disagreements

John Kabat-Zinn, who founded Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), states that with regular practice, you begin to cultivate the right mindset for non-reactivity, which can be especially helpful in a work setting. He co-wrote a conversational book with emotional intelligence researcher, Daniel Goleman, called Mindfulness @ Work, which is geared toward people in all industries and businesses, from managers to healthcare workers to teachers.

In the book, they discuss modern challenges caused by stress and competitiveness, which often plague the workplace, and they offer a solution: mindfulness. Exploration of different mindfulness techniques suitable for employees comes down to better understanding your working environment and needs. Research on mindfulness has established that mindfulness practice may improve employee work performance and reduce turnover (Dane and Brummel, 2014), while also helping individual employees to build emotional intelligence skills, such as self-awareness, which enable them to communicate more effectively and be less reactive.

Mindfulness for the Workplace: Application and Practice

Mindfulness may be implemented in the workplace in formal or informal ways. Increasingly, mindfulness training is showing up as part of health offerings or human resource perks. By offering this option, employees can learn mindfulness techniques on their own time and at their own pace. Mindfulness can also be built into group training, and spaces, such as meditation rooms, may be offered to provide employees with a safe and quiet space to practice.

Organizations can foster a mindful workplace culture by making resources, such as mindfulness apps and programs, available to employees, and explaining their benefits. Management can support mindfulness practices and ensure employee awareness by explaining the science behind its benefits, rather than posing it as an imposed spiritual practice, which it is not. The beauty of mindfulness is that it can complement any belief system due to its emphasis on simply being present with what is and not letting stress take over decision-making processes.

Here are a few basic ideas for mindfulness practices at work:

• Starting a meeting with a few silent moments in which employees may take mindful breaths to come into the present moment.
• Hiring a facilitator or mindfulness mindset coach who can come to the workplace or guide employees remotely through mindfulness exercises.
• Purchasing a mindfulness app for employee groups to encourage each other to practice regularly.
• Engaging in mindfulness training online, such as the Palouse Mindfulness MBSR certification.
• Sharing resources about the benefits of mindfulness, such as books or videos. 
• Leading a session in mindful breathing practice or play a recording for a group that will guide the office into the present moment, then reflect honestly about how it went.

Creating Remote Mindful Spaces

While in-person mindfulness practices can be team-building activities or include meditation rooms or spaces, online spaces, and virtual mindfulness sessions are proving powerful. Based on a study of web editors published in the National Library of Medicine, mindfulness practices provided through online sessions or self-paced trainings could reduce feelings of burnout and minimize stress or distractions. Facilitating mindfulness in remote work scenarios may also lead to increased connectivity and productivity due to the practice's emphasis on compassion and stress-relieving qualities, which help employees to deal with emotions productively.

Mindfulness for Business: Economic and Non-economic Benefits

The connection between mindfulness, work productivity, as well as overall business health is multifaceted. Because mindfulness can reduce workplace stress, burnout, and absenteeism, it can directly mean increased productivity because people simply feel better about themselves and feel better physically. Reducing stress reduces physical ailments, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, anxiety, and depression have all been linked to stress, so a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program at the workplace can have a direct impact on the overall health and well-being of staff and managers alike.

It is important to consider that when leaders and managers engage in mindfulness, it is more likely that the staff will be receptive to training. On top of the health benefits, mindfulness can increase creativity and focus, lead to better decision-making, and improve team dynamics in a business setting due to its ability to promote more calm, increased emotional intelligence, present-moment awareness, and a better handle on negative emotions.

Mindfulness at work leads to increased productivity and performance, decreased stress, improved at-work motivation and job satisfaction, and better health. Educating employees about these facts and deciding which mindfulness resources might be right for your working environment might change everything—from morale to the bottom line.

At Aura, 97% of people find more calm in just three days, which speaks to the power of meditation and mindful practices. If you’re looking for more guidance, community support, and resources to support anxious thoughts, join me at Aura, the most holistic meditation app on the market, for 30 days free.