It’s not your imagination. The stress levels you feel smothering the office and oozing out of every video meeting and email chain are higher than ever.
After several years of economic, social, and technological tumult, the world’s workers — your company’s employees included — are at the end of their ropes. And for many, if it hasn’t already set in, burnout is imminent.
A recent worldwide survey of over 10,000 desk-based workers found that 42% of workers report feeling burned out, an all-time high. An even greater percentage — 83% — reports work-related stress, a major contributing factor to burnout.
Related: 7 Strategies for Better Employee Retention Read it here →
There are a number of ways to address this growing employee stress and burnout epidemic, such as implementing flexible scheduling policies, decreasing workloads, and supporting employee wellness. One stress-reduction strategy that has shown particular promise in terms of efficacy and affordability is mindfulness.
Simple mindfulness techniques are easy to learn and require minimal equipment and space. And yet, only a few minutes of mindfulness per day can cause stress levels to plummet, even reversing some of the effects of burnout.
Below, we’ll explore some ways to introduce mindfulness to your company’s stressed-out employees. But first, let’s examine the evidence in favor of mindfulness at work.
Mindfulness in the Workplace: Can It Make a Difference?
Mindfulness is often considered synonymous with meditation. But while the terms are linked, they are not exactly interchangeable.
Mindfulness, according to the The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, “means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens.”
Meditation is a mental technique or practice that can be used to access a state of mindfulness, but formal meditation is not necessary to achieve mindfulness. Many activities can be practiced mindfully, including eating, exercising, and working.
How and why mindfulness helps reduce stress is a complex topic. (Scientists have observed physical changes within the brains of mindfulness practitioners.) Nevertheless, we don’t have to fully understand mindfulness to recognize its effects on work-related stress and burnout.
- One study monitored 22 executives through 16 weeks of mindfulness-based stress reduction training. The participants reported less stress, better physical and mental health, and showed significant declines in blood pressure and cortisol levels.
- Studies involving specific high-stress professions, including healthcare professionals and teachers, have provided strong evidence for using mindfulness to reduce burnout.
- A Duke University study of Aetna employees found that those who participated in a mindfulness program reported a 28% reduction in stress levels.
Because of these results, large employers such as Apple and Google have encouraged and supported mindfulness practices among their employees in recent years. Mindfulness directly impacts employee stress and burnout, and sustained mindfulness practices can help improve employee productivity, engagement, and creativity.
How to Promote Mindfulness At Your Workplace: 4 Easy Techniques That Work
You don’t need to hire yoga instructors or pay for meditation app subscriptions to support mindfulness among your company’s employees (although many employers have made these investments and seen excellent results). Simple short practices are best for learning the fundamentals of mindfulness.
Most of the techniques shared below can be completed in minutes while sitting at a desk, during a quick break, or even on the subway ride to or from work. Some companies have started to encourage mindfulness breaks throughout the work day, short periods of quiet downtime perfect for completing any of the following stress-reduction exercises:
1. Body Scan
Body scans are classic mindfulness exercises during which practitioners focus their awareness on different parts of their bodies, moving progressively from head to toe. Some people describe a body scan as a “mental X-ray,” the goal of which is to reconnect with our bodies, focusing on the sensations — including pain and discomfort — we often push to the back of our minds.
2. Mindful Breathing
Mindful practices often center on the breath to focus and calm a busy mind. The most basic form of mindful breathing involves simply inhaling and exhaling at a deliberate pace, observing the breath as you do so. As your mind wanders, notice it, and gently bring your attention back to the breath.
Many guided exercises, videos, and visualizations are available to help your employees master mindful breathing.
3. Mindful Walking
Whether we’ve associated it with mindfulness or not, humans have recognized the calming effects of a good walk for millennia. A brief stroll around the office park can do wonders for a frazzled employee’s mindset. But if they want to take it to the next level, you can encourage your employees to practice mindful walking, which combines physical exercise with mindfulness practice.
Mindful walking is all about awareness. Instead of ruminating on your worries, focus on your breathing, the sensations in your feet and legs, the feeling of the ground below you, and the sounds and sights of the world around you. Again, when your mind wanders (which it inevitably will), bring it back without judgment to your sensations.
Mindful walking can even be practiced indoors in small spaces. Some guides suggest tracing your path back and forth for 10 or 15 paces. (Repetition is a key meditative technique.)
4. Mindful Listening
Modern employees are persistently being pulled in multiple directions with constant communication. For example, the typical employee might attend a meeting while keeping one eye on their emails and another on their chat messages.
Mindful listening teaches us to focus on one thing at a time, namely, the person we are interacting with. Not only can mindful listening reduce the stress of multitasking and information overload, but it can also promote greater cohesion and more effective collaboration among coworkers.
The practice of mindful listening involves turning off all potential distractions (phones, computers, TVs, and so on), being aware of your thoughts as you listen and gently bringing your attention back to the conversation if it drifts, and allowing your conversation partner to speak without interruption or judgment.
Some companies have instituted a mindful meeting policy. Mindful meetings are held with clear intentions. Participants are asked to mute their devices, focus on the agenda, and engage each other with thoughtful, open minds.
Communicating About Mindfulness With Your Employees
These are just four of the many workplace-friendly mindfulness techniques that can help your employees manage stress and avoid burnout. We shared them here because they are easy to both learn and teach. Instructions can be distributed by email, video, or even text message.