Mindfulness in the Workplace: Why It Matters and How to Cultivate It

Mindfulness: a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

As we get busier, more connected, and more hooked up with technology, we are all striving to maintain our balance and live in healthy and stress-free ways. It can be difficult to focus, maintain a good attitude, and develop yourself to live in mindful ways. It’s critical we all take time to unplug, disconnect from our desk, and ensure our own sanity by enforcing some wellness rituals and health routines that can help us get through our work week and help us maintain a peaceful state of mind.

The top CEOs and business leaders engage in mindful lifestyles and take time to help their health and wellbeing by becoming more calm, self aware, and empowered within themselves. There is great power in learning how to manage our inner psychological state, emotional state, and physical state.

Developing self-awareness and taking time to integrate mindfulness techniques can help us operate more efficiently and more productively. When we live and work in a stressful state we often fail in making the right choices, and allow our mind to make our decisions from a place of fear. Living in our head often keeps us disconnected from seeing things as they really are.

When we are overly stimulated in our mind and stressed we often act out of our troubled emotions, mental patterns, and let our subconscious drive us. Our internal state and baggage, can cause us to suffer and make wrong choices.

Invoking mindfulness in the workplace can create a better environment, a better culture, and better employees.

Yoga techniques and meditation can greatly help everyone deal with mental and emotional issues. Exercising and doing simple movements and breathing techniques can help energize the body and make us more alert and focused. Taking time to develop self-awareness can help us become better leaders, managers, and decision makers.

Workplaces and businesses can enforce a variety of mindful benefits to employees. Teaching leaders in the workplace and employees the impact of their thoughts and attitudes can encourage them to develop their mindset and enhance their overall wellbeing. Mindfulness can be enforced before a meeting with a simple meditation, or even through team building exercises.

Businesses can offer rewards for doing meditation, working out, going to yoga, disconnecting from technology, and more. Anything that can help us get off our screens, and more into our bodies and hearts, helps us get out of our minds.

It’s becoming popular now to have speakers come into businesses and teach people how to incorporate more mindful manners and better communication skills. Team outings and activities are popular too to help employees get out of their known work environment and connect in new ways.

Ultimately, mindfulness can help us all connect to ourselves and others better. When we can understand that our internal state creates our external state, and no one outside of us can change that, we begin to get motivated to improve the quality of our own life. Knowing everyone has a unique perspective and acts in different ways for different reasons, helps us understand our realities better.

When people feel supported, and are able to have a good environment it automatically encourages people to want to be there and want to grow within the culture and strong work ethics. Businesses now are implementing new mindful tactics so their people can thrive.

Mindfulness lets us live more loving in the world, helps us become less reactive, and teaches us how to live better through right attitude and developing positive habits and self-awareness. Mindfulness creates more connection, compassion, and improves communication. We can transform our people, attitudes, environments, and work places, by fostering more unity, connection, and making work and life more enjoyable.