How Companies Use Meditation for Mental Health
Employees are more actively embracing meditation for mental health and beginning to include meditative practices in their daily routines, both at home and at the workplace. It is apparent that corporations understand how integral the need for meditation has become. According to a 2022 research posted by the American Institute of Stress, 83% of employees feel stressed on the job and have stated that their job is the primary reason why they’re suffering from anxiety and stress.
Employees need a form of release, a way to stop overthinking, and need to learn how to control their anxiety when working in fast-paced work environments. And the best and most cost-effective way of helping them is by encouraging them to meditate. It’s also important to understand that meditation doesn’t just help employees calm their minds, it helps employees to feel positive about themselves.
Meditation provides employees with clarity of mind, helping them find creative ways to boost their productivity while also empathetically collaborating with their teams. Research shows that meditation in the workplace helps employees achieve a sense of unity and drive to creative problem-solving and quick decision-making. Meditation helps companies produce high-performing yet healthy teams, maximizing both their return on investment as well as boost employee retention.
Can meditation help with mental health? In this article, we’re going to comprehensively discuss how companies can leverage the power of meditation and how companies are using meditation for mental health to help their employees boost their well-being.
Science-Backed Ways Companies Use Meditation for Mental Health
Meditation is a Powerful Way to Reduce Stress
There is nothing wrong with feeling a little stressed at work. It’s pretty common especially when you’re trying to diligently work and finish your tasks. The problem starts when you begin to feel overwhelmingly stressed and full of anxiety all the time. This can lead to a variety of issues such as exhaustion and fatigue, burnout, lack of focus, and a massive decline in motivation.
According to a Gallup Report, it was identified that 44% of workers (worldwide) feel completely stressed out on the job, having very little energy for the next day. This is also why observing a mental health awareness month has become so important. It’s safe to say that the corporate environment does contribute to employee stress.
As a manager, you can help your employees better deal with stress and anxiety by encouraging them to be more positive. This is one of the reasons why meditation in the workplace has become so important. Practicing meditation at the workplace has proven to help individuals understand how to compartmentalize their negative thoughts. Research has shown that meditation can help employees gradually enhance their productivity and job satisfaction, helping minimize stress and make them more resilient.
Workplace Meditation May Help You Retain Employees
We live in an increasingly competitive corporate ecosystem where the hunt for talented and educated individuals is always on the rise. There’s a larger job market which gives professionals a lot of choices. Corporations can attract the level of employees they seek by enticing them with more value-added services including mindfulness and meditation.
It may be surprising for some to read that there is a connection between meditation for mental health in companies and employee loyalty. Encouraging your team to practice daily meditation techniques is a great way to advocate for the importance of mental health. You’ll be showing your employees that you truly care about their well-being. Research indicates that allowing your employees to meditate at the workplace will help motivate them to stay loyal to the company. They’ll be happier and more hesitant to leave a stress-free environment. Here is an article you may want to read titled “A Closer Look at the Benefits of Workplace Meditation“.
Another great reason why you should encourage your team to meditate is that it’s going to help them work together with increased harmony, steadily becoming more productive and steadfast in tackling challenging tasks. When your workforce learns how to compartmentalize their stress and focus on the job at hand, they will be able to quickly create a more collaborative yet less stressful workplace environment, coordinating with one another to achieve the company’s goals as one single unit.
Studies have also shown that enabling your workforce to meditate at the office in a group or allowing them time to meditate on their own, can also continuously keep them motivated to perform at a higher level. Practicing meditation for mental health is going to enable them to determine their inner strengths, negate negative emotions or judgmental thinking, and push on toward working with increased levels of focus and determination.
Meditation Can Help Transform Your Employees into Creative Thinkers
Companies also introduce meditation programs to motivate their employees to not just beat stress and anxiety but to gradually become creative and productive thinkers. To stay ahead of the rest in this competitive work environment, one of the most important skills to have is problem-solving. This is followed by the ability to make quick decisions. Meditation is an excellent way to achieve both.
Because meditation can also be used to help employees tap into their inner strengths, allowing them to visualize success while not letting their emotions get in the way, your employees will have the ability to think more clearly. They will become more present and motivated to push themselves. At the same time, practicing meditation will also enable them to increase their self-esteem and think of themselves more positively. They will become more confident and hungrier for success but not at the cost of their mental health.
According to research, encouraging your employees to form a meditative routine in the workplace will slowly help them develop higher cognition, enabling them to think more creatively, solve complex problems without stressing out, and become more divergent in the way they approach their tasks.
Corporate Meditation Programs Can Help Promote Employee Diversity
In any workplace environment, it’s very important that your employees share a productive and positive bond with the manager or team leader. Disharmony between workers and their managers only leads to passive-aggressive behavior, non-conformance, and disgruntlement. Meditation can play an instrumental role in helping your entire workforce embrace organizational change without succumbing to negative emotions. In the workplace, meditation for mental health can help create a powerful sense of collaboration, constructive criticism, and a motivating work environment.
However, corporations often have to deal with employee resistance when it comes to implementing a change in how things should run and be managed. Encouraging your workers to meditate can be a great way to help them think more deeply and objectively about why you’re making those changes without feeling any anxiety or overthinking matters. Meditation is an excellent tool to help your employees compartmentalize their emotions, throwing out unreasonable feelings such as job insecurity, demotion, or any misgivings that they are being set up for failure.
Furthermore, meditation also helps minimize the chances of an employee’s reluctance to any type of organizational or managerial change, greatly reducing the risk of confrontation or aggressive behavior. Instead, meditation will give your employees the ability to profoundly think about their environment in the present moment and take it as a professional challenge, which will only help propel their confidence and motivation levels.
Meditation is an Excellent Way to Help Propel Employee Focus
Corporate meditation sessions can be a great way to evolve your team into empathetic and focused individuals. By constantly being in the present moment, thinking without their emotions, and compartmentalizing their personal troubles, your employees will gradually transform into more compassionate and collaborative individuals. Meditation helps instill a powerful feeling of togetherness to achieve the same goals and move toward the future as a team. Meditation can help your employees become more goal-oriented. They will start thinking for the long term, positively express their opinions, participate in constructive criticism, and help one another to achieve the company’s goals and ambitions, while also realizing their own in the process.
Daily corporate meditation sessions can also help your employees gradually become more open-minded and think more constructively and objectively. It can enable your workforce to make better and more productive decisions in line with their tasks and goals. Part of meditation is about taking a step back from the monotony of the world, breathing deeply, and simply focusing on the breath. By using this simple process, we can attain peacefulness that allows us to be happy.
Practicing meditation is a method that allows us to become more aware of our thoughts and our thought patterns. We learn to make peace with our emotions. We help ourselves through our practice to increase our focus. The practice also allows employees to become more constructively engaged in their tasks, conquering challenges, and continuously moving towards their ambitions.
Introducing meditation in the workplace will help your employees become more cognizant of their actions and through daily meditative practices, they will gradually transform into a more productive and conscious team, working together to achieve the company’s goals while being mindful of their mental health. Companies that have meditation programs are seen to promote a unified notion of positive reinforcement amongst their employees, although the research into how employees become collectively mindful is still ongoing.
Furthermore, a meditation-centric company will also be able to promote a culture of mindfulness for its employees, allowing the workforce to implement meditative techniques not just in their professional lives but in their personal lives as well.
Globally Renowned Corporations That Have Successfully Introduced Meditation Programs for Their Employees
Nike
As the biggest manufacturer and retailer of athletic wear and shoes throughout the globe, Nike was the first major corporation to introduce meditation sessions to its employees, helping them manage stress and become creative thinkers.
General Mills
As one of America’s largest processed food companies, General Mills also encourages its employees to practice mindfulness meditation. The company considers meditation practices as a core philosophy of its company, allowing its workforce to practice meditation techniques with dedicated and professional instructors.
As one of the world’s biggest and most innovative technology corporations, Google has implemented a comprehensive meditative and positive psychology program for its employees on a global scale. The company is a staunch advocate of the importance of meditation for mental health and provides its employees with dedicated meditation sessions, helping them become more productive and creative.
Intel
Another technology giant, Intel has also implemented company-wide meditation programs to help its employees become critical thinkers, helping them become more productive and focused individuals.
Develop a Productive and Diligent Workforce
Introducing meditation for mental health to your employees is a very simple yet profoundly effective way of creating a team of loyal, focused, and productive employees. Corporate meditation programs are going to help transform your employees into happy, healthy, and self-aware individuals who will have the mental fortitude and attitude for critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making.
Meditation House offers meditation classes and programs to corporations to support their mental health initiatives. We offer 15, 30, 45, and 60-minute individual sessions as well as custom mindfulness meditation programs that are designed according to a company’s needs. Please contact us and let us know what we can do to support you and your team.
