Benefits of Mindfulness
How mindfulness can boost your productivity
Why does the corporate world need mindfulness courses? In this current economic climate, many employees are now under pressure to perform with limited resources. UK businesses lose approximately £530 million a year due to stress-related illnesses, according to the Health and Safety Executive. With the UK in the grip of a major recession, there has never been a better time to help your employees become more emotionally and mentally resilient and prevent burn-out.
Innovative employers such as Google, Toyota and Starbucks have all run mindfulness courses for their employees. Mindfulness has been clinically proven to:
•Enable better relationships with colleagues
•Reduce stress by 70 percent
•Boost concentration levels
•Improve sleep patterns
•Improve job performance, productivity & satisfaction
Transport for London ran a six-week mindfulness training programme which saw stress-related sick leave fall by 70%. More importantly, it helps build the emotional resilience of employees in these economically tough times. It makes perfect sense that a healthy workforce equals a productive workforce and mindfulness has been proven to lower staff turnover.
The course had paid dividends: among employees who have attended the course:
•The number of days off for stress, anxiety and depression
have fallen by 71% over the following three years
•Absences for all conditions dropped by 50% over that time
•80% of participants reporting improvements in their
relationships
•79% improvements in their ability to relax
•64% improvements in sleep patterns
•53% improvements in happiness at work
How mindfulness can benefit the individual
Source: Be Mindful report by Ed Halliwell
Greater insight: By taking a mindful perspective, we observe our experience but don’t get caught up in it. Mindfulness helps us get greater clarity on what is happening in our minds, and in our lives;
Improved problem-solving: By slowing down and investigating our thoughts, feelings and experiences more carefully, we create space for coming up with wise responses to the difficulties in our lives. We create space between the urge to react and our actions themselves, and we can make considered and creative decisions about how to behave;
Better attention: We can concentrate better on tasks, maintain our focus and reach goals. We are less distracted. Experience can become fresher, lighter, clearer, richer and more vivid;
Less selfishness: We are less wrapped up in our own thoughts and feelings and so have greater ability to take others into account. We can be more considerate, empathic, compassionate, sensitive and flexible in our relationships.