Being overwhelmed with work is a very common occurrence these days. This may cause you to overthink and ultimately waste a huge chunk of time. Which may cause you further anxiety and discomfort. Trust me we all have been there. Procrastination is now everywhere these days.
A mindfulness approach to the workplace is being conscious and aware of what’s happening around you at your workplace. This is achieved by centring your focus at your work. Setting goals for yourself and achieving them. Feeling rewarded with each accomplished goal. Enjoy communicating with your colleagues. Not just that, mindfulness at work exercises has also been known to reduce stress and improve health and happiness.
Mindfulness is a technique to stop your mind wandering around from one place to another. To stay in the single topic that particularly demands a lot of attention is difficult. During such moments it may appear to you that your brain is on autopilot and thoughts seem to come to you automatically. Mindfulness is the process to stabilize this trait of mind and focus your attention in a productive way.
What is mindfulness in the workplace?
Mindfulness is the way to divert your full attention to what’s happening now at present. As a manager, you cannot afford to be stuck in a moment. This may create negative emotion and be disastrous for your work. Ultimately such occurrences will affect your job satisfaction and productivity.
You may already spend a huge part of your active hours at work. Difficult tasks, tight deadlines and long stressing days at work may provoke anxiety. But at the same time, your work is what gives your life meaning.Â
Mindfulness in the workplace is the simplest way to enjoy each and every moment of your working hours. Archive a state of alertness that helps you proceed moment to moment.
Benefits of mindfulness in the workplace and business
You have to participate in a lot of negotiations and difficult conversations through the course of your day’s work. You may also need to work in collaboration with your colleagues and report back to your manager on your progress. Mindfulness techniques to reduce stress will enhance your active listening ability.
With the mindfulness approach to the workplace, you will be able to deal with your daily life and activities with ease. Some of the benefits of practising mindfulness at work are:
- Reduce your stress and anxiety.
- Improve your power to focus
- Create in you an improved sense of wellbeing
- Develop better Emotional Intelligence.
- Develop better Emotional Intelligence.
- Promote the creative genius in you
- Build great relationships, goodwill and work partnerships among coworkers
- Promote better mental health among employees
- Improve soft skills
Even tech giants like Google, Apple and Nike have introduced mindfulness programs in their office for the benefit of their employees.
Why is it important?
The scientific and statistical evidence behind mindfulness practices are so evident now it just cannot be ignored. It has been known to reduce negative emotion among people. This can effectively cut off distractions and improve your decision making. So these types of activities among the employees will likely enhance organisational performance.
Examples of mindfulness in the workplace
The practice of mindfulness will create a very accepting atmosphere among workers. A very good functioning relationship will exist among the workers. This will create a conflict-free atmosphere where everyone will be able to thrive.
In an office full of positive energy managers will be able to get out of the workers. Managers who practised mindfulness will reach productivity levels beyond effective.
How to introduce mindfulness in the workplace
It’s not easy to introduce something new in today’s busy world. So you may find it difficult to introduce mindfulness practices in your office. That’s why it is recommended the practice should be voluntary and spontaneous.
A few practical ways to introduce mindfulness at work are:
- Enlighten the staff about the practice
- Encourage them to perform mindful exercises
- Maintain a common quiet place in the office
- Promote short breaks among the staff
- Create a work culture based on gratitude and compassion
- Practice active listening among coworkers
Ways to develop Mindfulness approach to the workplace are:
1. Mindfulness meditation
Your day starts as soon as you wake up in the morning. Start off your day with a short meditation. Close your eyes and ground yourself with continuous rhythmic deep breaths and calm your mind. Feel your body and focus on your breath. You may also use guided meditation for your meditation practice. You can find plenty of mindfulness meditations for free on youtube.
2. Use mindful exercises
The main purpose of the mindful exercise is to create intense awareness on what you are sensing. Like all other exercises, mindfulness exercises give better results upon more and more practice. Mindfulness exercises generally involve the following:
- Use mindful breathing for one minute when any negative thought appears in your mind. Bring your attention to the air entering your lungs through your nose and exiting from your mouth. This is a great way of stress reduction.
- Stretch your body from time to time. Release all the tension that has accumulated in your muscles.
- The mindful walk meditation is also a great way to reduce stress. Find a small walkway and walk being fully aware. Keep track of your sensations
- Live in the moment. Find the joy in small pleasures.
- Eat your favourite food and enjoy it to the fullest. Mindful eating will help you take your mind away from stress for the moment and enjoy your food.
- Appreciate your colleague’s accomplishments. Create an atmosphere composed of gratitude.
3. How to start off your day at work
A successful day’s work depends a lot on the way you start your day’s work. Take a few deep breaths for a minute before you start working. Allow yourself to calm down before you start to work. Then start working in a relaxed way. Approach everything with a rational perspective. Don’t let stress take you over at work.
4. Take breaks in between, slow down to speed up
Being overwhelmed with stress at work can get you hurried. This type of bad patch is a regular occurrence for most employees. You may have already experienced such times where you experience so much stress that you can’t get anything done.Â
Don’t let your workload overwhelm you. This can rather slow down your progress and decrease the quality of your work. Instead in this kind of situation slow down and take a break. Use mindful walking, meditating or take a few deep breaths. Get everything organised in your head before starting to work.
5. Train your brain to make stress your friend
The biggest resistance everyone normally faces in their work is to get started off with the work. If your mind rejects work then obviously you won’t have fun working. But when you look at it from the perspective that your work defines you, it will bear importance in your mind.Â
Try to divide your work into various small segments. Upon completing each segment will automatically feel rewarded. Don’t abruptly rush into a lot of work. Bigger workload will only demotivate you.
6. Pay attention to yourself
Accept your feelings. Don’t try to judge your own thoughts as being right or wrong. This may demotivate you, you may end up thinking yourself inferior to others and lack self-esteem. These types of thoughts don’t mean anything and have no effect in the real world.
Instead, try to take on challenges. Try to identify your positive attributes. Always try to live in the present moment with your current surroundings. Don’t let any incident in the past worry you. This is what mindfulness is about.
7. Pay attention to routine tasks
One way to cultivate mindfulness is to think differently about the routine tasks that you have to complete every day. Like reporting and filling out paperwork. These types of activity can be marked as pitstops for you to try and regain your focus.Â
Try to focus your mind for at least 3 minutes. Convince your mind to enjoy the activities you do daily at work. Also, tell your mind you will love the feeling of completing the task. This way you will instinctively feel rewarded after finishing each task.
Ways to encourage mindfulness at work
Mindfulness enhances engagement in a workplace among its employees. There are also several well-documented proofs of mindfulness directly relating to productivity. Not only that, but mindfulness has also increased being linked to better mental health among the employees. You may try these simple ways to encourage mindfulness at work:
- Take a 5-minute mindful walk
- Avoid consecutive meetings
- Make your space into your comfort zone
- Participate in active listening with your colleagues
- Practice mindful exercises on your desk
- Practice mindful exercises on your desk
Cultivating mindfulness skills in business
Mindfulness has been well known to increase emotional intelligence. It also enables a person to use their eyes, ears and thoughts from a different perspective. As a result mindfulness activities can help the businessman focus better on what’s happening in the present market. This certain level of alertness will enable them to pursue effective decision making.
On the other hand, paying more attention to business matrices will help the owner handle the business more sustainably.
How does mindfulness look in organizations?
An organisation with mindful employees will show better creativity wise. They are more likely to perform better administrative duties as well. Employees participating in active listening will give better outputs. Altogether employees will have a greater overall well being.Â
How to Develop A Mindful Organization
Traditionally people had to multitask and perform several types of work at a time in a modern workplace. This would have caused the workers’ attention to get distorted. Rather it was very difficult for some to focus their attention here and there every now and then.Â
The necessity of introducing mindfulness practices at the workplace is now unprecedented. So organisations have to act from their half and make the employees more aware of their significance. The company has to take the leading role by introducing mindfulness practices among its employees. This will definitely help employees in the long run with sound mental health and improve their quality work.Â
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