Mindfulness is a tool many successful entrepreneurs and forward-looking businesses swear by. Virgin founder Richard Branson practices it, Arianna Huffington, the founder of The Huffington Post, is an advocate and companies including Google already offer employee mindfulness programmes. Swiss companies too, such as Axpo, reserve some of their weekly working hours for mindfulness sessions with their employees. As a simple practice involving meditation and breathing, mindfulness helps us to focus on the present. Here's why it's such a powerful tool for sharpening the focus, productivity and all-round well-being of your team.
Spurs creativity and innovation
Short bouts of meditation and mindfulness are shown to boost creativity, by opening the mind to new ideas and giving us the clarity of thought to focus on and process these ideas. The Walt Disney Company became a pioneer in workplace meditation on noticing a big increase in creativity after employees meditated on creative solutions.
Focuses and sharpens attention
There are many distractions in offices, from chattering colleagues to buzzing phones, which can make it hard to focus on the task at hand. Research demonstrates that brief stints of mindfulness or meditation can help focus the mind and sharpen attention, contributing to a boost in our productivity and output.
Enables better stress management
Stress really affects physical and mental well-being, leading to unmotivated and unproductive employees, greater absenteeism and a higher staff turnover. Mindfulness has been shown to lower stress hormones and reduce inflammation, as well as reducing activity in the part of your brain that's central in switching on your stress response.
Boosts positivity
Focusing on the here and now using mindfulness techniques helps us to become more aware of negative thoughts, acknowledge them and realise they're often not an accurate reflection of reality. Several different studies show it reduces the chances of depression and boosts our happy hormones.
Keeps us thinking clearly
Studies suggest that mindfulness techniques help us achieve greater emotional clarity. This is because mindfulness teaches us to clear our mind of clutter and focus on the present moment, which gives us time to pause, reflect and assess the situation.
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