Meditation at Work
Staying calm is easier said than done! The hectic pace of our daily lives often prevents us from being relaxed in all circumstances. Bad news: stress and productivity do not go along well. It is quite the opposite, as stress does us a disservice on many levels. If you recognize yourself as a stressed or disorganized person, meditation is about to become your best ally.
Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Sebastien Henry, Larry Brilliant, or Rupert Murdoch. These leading figures in the world economy coming from different business backgrounds have integrated meditation into their daily routine. And they have confessed that this practice has optimized their performance in all respects.
Practice meditation at work with Yogilab !
Whether you are self-employed, a freelancer, consultant, or employee, you probably spend a lot of your time sitting behind your laptop. When the files pile up or the projects accumulate, you can feel the stress becoming more and more overwhelming. The constant ringing of the phone and the noise around you make it difficult to concentrate and move forward effectively to achieve your goals. It’s time to let go and refocus on what’s important: you! Contrary to mainstream perception, meditation has its place in the professional environment and can even boost your productivity with this practice. Yogilab gives you some tips on how to meditate at work and find the composure you need to improve your performance.
Taking A Break Or Meditating: What’s The Difference?
Breaks are essential to avoid nervous and visual fatigue. But they do not allow us to achieve the equanimity and relaxation provided by meditation. Meditation is a mental process that involves a re-centering of the mind, allowing it to temporarily cut itself off from the outside world to observe its internal habit patterns and overall functioning. When you take a break, you are not totally disconnected from your environment, even if you are no longer sitting at your desk.
Consider the words of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh:
“Peace and happiness are available when we can quiet our distracting thoughts and come back to the present moment and notice the blue sky, the smile of a child, the beauty of a sunrise. Mindfulness can help you to be more grounded in the present moment, which is essential for completing your daily tasks, avoiding scattering, proactively listening to each member of your team, and prioritizing your assignments.”.
Meditation Boosts Your Productivity
Yes, you read that right, sitting cross-legged and doing nothing for a few minutes each day boosts your productivity. Sounds like a paradox, doesn’t it? But the fact is that meditation slows down your thoughts due to its calming properties. . Incorporating this practice into your daily life allows you to better tame your mind and thus prevent it from grinding continuously like a hamster in a cage. If your thoughts are going in all directions, you will not be efficient at work.
Meditation Increases Your Concentration
According to a Microsoft study, the human attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish. Technology is all around us and has many advantages, but the proliferation of screens and the number of hours spent flicking through information has reduced our attention span that is now 7 seconds, compared to 11 seconds for a goldfish.
As a result, it is not uncommon to find it difficult to concentrate on a work file or an assignment. Personal issues, colleagues talking loudly, email or SMS notifications popping up every minute. With meditation, you can learn to focus your attention on what you are doing. The practice will help you disconnect from your screens and allow you to reconnect with yourself and improve your concentration.
Meditation Reduces Your Stress
Deadlines, work overload, endless meetings… Your nerves are surely put to the test at the office. While a reasonable amount of stress is necessary to fuel your competitive spirit, too much stress can make you feel drained, to say the least. This is where meditation comes in. It’s a break in your day to let go of all responsibilities to bask in a bubble of silence just for you. Meditation allows you to recharge your batteries and gives you the energy to fulfill your responsibilities. Recent studies have shown that a daily practice of mindfulness reduces the production of cortisone (the stress hormone), as well as feelings of anxiety and fatigue.
Meditation Helps To Manage Your Emotions
People who practice meditation show less emotional reactivity. In other words, they have more control over their emotions and are less likely to react impulsively to frustrating or emotionally charged situations. This may help them make more logical decisions and stay composed. Being emotionally intelligent allows you to take the problems you encounter at work less personally, to ruminate less on the mistake you made the day before on the all-important file your boss gave you, and instead to focus on the solutions that are right there in front of you. In short, meditation allows you to take a step back, to put things into perspective, and thus to tackle each challenge more effectively.
In addition to higher emotional control, meditation practitioners tend to have a heightened capacity for self-observation and introspection. These abilities allow them to recover more quickly when negatively provoked and to break negative patterns, making it easier to break bad habits.
Meditation Frees Your Creativity
Creativity is not only reserved for artists! Being creative also means being a source of ideas in your professional life, being one step ahead of your competitors, or simply finding a solution to a problem. However, creativity is too often undermined by the judgment of others, lack of self-confidence, or fear of failure. This is where meditation comes in! At first, concentrating on your breathing would have nothing to do with your creativity. However, meditating regularly activates the right hemisphere of your brain which is at the origin of creativity. And you need creativity every day to be more efficient and productive. Your solutions will be more innovative!
The Right Environment
You may think that your office is not the ideal place to practice meditation exercises. But you can meditate anywhere, as long as you use the right method. If you are just starting out, you will probably need to find a quieter place to isolate yourself. You may, for example, choose an empty meeting room or the staff break room. Of course, if you are working from home, it is easier to find a place to relax. Yet they are some people who like to meditate in public places, such as parks and gardens. It’s up to you to find the right place where you feel comfortable.
Walking Meditation
Another meditation exercise at work is simply walking the halls. When you move and have to walk from room to room, from meeting room to lunchroom, focus on your tempo. Disconnect from all electronic devices, get out of your office, go stretch your legs and pay attention to the present moment. Once you have focused on your pace, you can slow down slightly or increase the speed a little. Change the rhythm as you go along and focus on what you are doing. This practice seems trivial, but what it does is helps you be present at all times. It makes everything a meditation, and you learn to take your awareness everywhere with you.
Meditation at Work
Staying calm is easier said than done! The hectic pace of our daily lives often prevents us from being relaxed in all circumstances. Bad news: stress and productivity do not go along well. It is quite the opposite, as stress does us a disservice on many levels. If you recognize yourself as a stressed or disorganized person, meditation is about to become your best ally.
Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Sebastien Henry, Larry Brilliant, or Rupert Murdoch. These leading figures in the world economy coming from different business backgrounds have integrated meditation into their daily routine. And they have confessed that this practice has optimized their performance in all respects.
Practice meditation at work with Yogilab!
Whether you are self-employed, a freelancer, consultant, or employee, you probably spend a lot of your time sitting behind your laptop. When the files pile up or the projects accumulate, you can feel the stress becoming more and more overwhelming. The constant ringing of the phone and the noise around you make it difficult to concentrate and move forward effectively to achieve your goals. It’s time to let go and refocus on what’s important: you! Contrary to mainstream perception, meditation has its place in the professional environment and can even boost your productivity with this practice. Yogilab gives you some tips on how to meditate at work and find the composure you need to improve your performance.
Taking a break or meditating: What’s the difference?
Breaks are essential to avoid nervous and visual fatigue. But they do not allow us to achieve the equanimity and relaxation provided by meditation. Meditation is a mental process that involves a re-centering of the mind, allowing it to temporarily cut itself off from the outside world to observe its internal habit patterns and overall functioning. When you take a break, you are not totally disconnected from your environment, even if you are no longer sitting at your desk.
Benefits of meditating at work
Consider the words of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh: “Peace and happiness are available when we can quiet our distracting thoughts and come back to the present moment and notice the blue sky, the smile of a child, the beauty of a sunrise. Mindfulness can help you to be more grounded in the present moment, which is essential for completing your daily tasks, avoiding scattering, proactively listening to each member of your team, and prioritizing your assignments.”.
Meditation boosts your productivity
Yes, you read that right, sitting cross-legged and doing nothing for a few minutes each day boosts your productivity. Sounds like a paradox, doesn’t it? But the fact is that meditation slows down your thoughts due to its calming properties. . Incorporating this practice into your daily life allows you to better tame your mind and thus prevent it from grinding continuously like a hamster in a cage. If your thoughts are going in all directions, you will not be efficient at work.
Meditation increases your concentration concentration
According to a Microsoft study, the human attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish. Technology is all around us and has many advantages, but the proliferation of screens and the number of hours spent flicking through information has reduced our attention span that is now 7 seconds, compared to 11 seconds for a goldfish. As a result, it is not uncommon to find it difficult to concentrate on a work file or an assignment. Personal issues, colleagues talking loudly, email or SMS notifications popping up every minute.
With meditation, you can learn to focus your attention on what you are doing. The practice will help you disconnect from your screens and allow you to reconnect with yourself and improve your concentration.
Meditation reduces your stress
Deadlines, work overload, endless meetings… Your nerves are surely put to the test at the office. While a reasonable amount of stress is necessary to fuel your competitive spirit, too much stress can make you feel drained, to say the least.
This is where meditation comes in. It’s a break in your day to let go of all responsibilities to bask in a bubble of silence just for you. Meditation allows you to recharge your batteries and gives you the energy to fulfill your responsibilities. Recent studies have shown that a daily practice of mindfulness reduces the production of cortisone (the stress hormone), as well as feelings of anxiety and fatigue.
Meditation helps to manage your emotions
People who practice meditation show less emotional reactivity. In other words, they have more control over their emotions and are less likely to react impulsively to frustrating or emotionally charged situations. This may help them make more logical decisions and stay composed. Being emotionally intelligent allows you to take the problems you encounter at work less personally, to ruminate less on the mistake you made the day before on the all-important file your boss gave you, and instead to focus on the solutions that are right there in front of you.
In short, meditation allows you to take a step back, to put things into perspective, and thus to tackle each challenge more effectively.
Meditation develops your capacity for self-observation
In addition to higher emotional control, meditation practitioners tend to have a heightened capacity for self-observation and introspection. These abilities allow them to recover more quickly when negatively provoked and to break negative patterns, making it easier to break bad habits.
When you are a beginner, it is not always easy to meditate for more than 10 minutes. If you set yourself 2-hour sessions at the outset, you may not be able to stick to them, which can be a source of frustration.
Sit or lie down and focus on your breathing, a visual cue, a feeling. Start with a short but good session, rather than feeling guilty about not reaching your goal. Once you are stable and comfortable with small sessions, you will naturally and gradually increase over time.
Meditation frees your creativity
Creativity is not only reserved for artists! Being creative also means being a source of ideas in your professional life, being one step ahead of your competitors, or simply finding a solution to a problem. However, creativity is too often undermined by the judgment of others, lack of self-confidence, or fear of failure. This is where meditation comes in!
At first, concentrating on your breathing would have nothing to do with your creativity. However, meditating regularly activates the right hemisphere of your brain which is at the origin of creativity. And you need creativity every day to be more efficient and productive. Your solutions will be more innovative!
The right environment
You may think that your office is not the ideal place to practice meditation exercises. But you can meditate anywhere, as long as you use the right method. If you are just starting out, you will probably need to find a quieter place to isolate yourself. You may, for example, choose an empty meeting room or the staff break room. Of course, if you are working from home, it is easier to find a place to relax. Yet they are some people who like to meditate in public places, such as parks and gardens. It’s up to you to find the right place where you feel comfortable.
Walking meditation
Another meditation exercise at work is simply walking the halls. When you move and have to walk from room to room, from meeting room to lunchroom, focus on your tempo. Disconnect from all electronic devices, get out of your office, go stretch your legs and pay attention to the present moment. Once you have focused on your pace, you can slow down slightly or increase the speed a little. Change the rhythm as you go along and focus on what you are doing.
This practice seems trivial, but what it does is helps you be present at all times. It makes everything a meditation, and you learn to take your awareness everywhere with you.
What prominent entrepreneurs say about meditation
Ray Dalio
The billionaire and founder of Bridgewater Associates has encouraged his 735 employees to practice meditation on a regular basis. In an interview with Business Insider, Dalio said, “I did it because it’s the greatest gift I can give to anyone. It brings equanimity, creativity, and peace.” Since then, meditation practices have spread throughout Wall Street.
Jeff Weiner
CEO of LinkedIn since 2009, Weiner has grown the social application’s membership from 33 million to more than 430 million. A part of his success philosophy involves his appreciation of health, love, and free time. In the health area, Weiner admitted to using an app called Headspace to meditate every day. He frequently recommends the practice to his employees and partners.
Bill Ford
Being the executive chairman of Ford Motor Company, Ford takes time to meditate every day, no matter what. During his bankruptcy nearly a decade ago, he admitted in a Harvard Business Review article that the practice of meditation has kept him alive on the darkest days. It helped him regain and improve his productivity, but also to make decisions with compassion and kindness.
Marc Benioff
Benioff, the founder of SalesForce, recommends meditation to all aspiring entrepreneurs and meditates every morning before work himself. His practice began after he received advice from Steve Jobs to “pay attention and envision the future”. Benioff said he also takes time to express gratitude, which helps clear his mind at the start of the day.
Russell Simmons
As the current president and CEO of Rush Communications, Simmons is best known as the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings. A few years ago, he wrote an article for Entrepreneur detailing his views on meditation and encouraging new and experienced entrepreneurs to take up the habit.
Start meditating at work today!
Contrary to what one might think, meditation is a very profitable occupation! The sooner you incorporate this practice into your routine, the sooner it will bear fruit and your professional life will take a turn for the better. Yogilab is here to motivate and support you on your self-development journey.
