The Seattle Seahawks proved to be the best in the world beating the Denver Broncos at Super Bowl XLV111. But the real secret to the Seahawks success could be what some of the players practice off the field.
It’s recently come out that coach Pete Carroll encourages his players to do yoga and meditate daily.
“Meditation is simply trying to slow the mind down, but more importantly connecting to our higher self,” said Francine Papadimitrakis a meditation instructor at Yoga Space. “We have 60,000 thoughts on average a day. So we want to try and control that, slow the mind a little bit which is really important for our Western culture.”
Research has shown that the mindfulness that comes with doing yoga and meditating can not only help people physically, but mentally by raising awareness of self-defeating thoughts.
It’s not only gaining steam in the sports world but it’s catching the attention of corporate America.
“Corporate instruction with yoga and wellness just overall is becoming much more popular in the last eight to ten years, said yoga instructor Gloria Escover.
Escover runs a home based yoga business and teaches at Aera Energy and several other corporations in Bakersfield.
Aera employee Maria Rodriguez is pregnant with her first child and said yoga has helped her balance her health and work.
“I think it helps me to control, to relax my muscles and help me breathe,” said Rodriguez.
Kathy Daniel, a registered nurse for Aera said wellness in the workplace is proving not only to be healthy for employees but to employers bottom line.
“It also helps with productivity, it helps reduce absenteeism,” said Daniel. “We are self-insured for two out of our three health plans, so it helps the bottom line of our health plans if we have less utilization and it also helps the bottom line in the company.”
The Comprehensive Blood and Cancer Center started a meditation program for its employees in 2010 and even has a room designated for de-stressing.
CBCC employee Millie Mcguire said the mental recharge she gets from meditating helps her get through her day.
“I’m normally a happy person but it’s kind of like that icing on the cake on a day-to-day basis.”
Dr. Ravi Patel has been meditating for nearly three decades. He said he saw how it helped him and thought his employees could benefit as well.
“It helped me in a very immense way because of the variety of illnesses we deal with,” said Patel. “Illnesses which are very sad, very tragic sometimes. If you’re not grounded under those circumstances you can lose your own stability.”
Employees are not required to meditate but for Susana Bell who is a nurse practioner, she said it’s been a life-changing choice.
“I think I’m a nicer person. Not just here, my family has definitely noticed a big difference,” said Bell. They know when I’ve meditated and when I’ve not meditated.”
If you’re looking for a little Zen in your life but can’t find it at work, Yoga Space offers a free 30 minute meditation class every Saturday.
“If you’re breathing it would help you,” said Papadimitrakis. “We all come to our mats for different reasons so it would help anyone and everyone.”
From: ABC