Meditation isn’t about sitting down and emptying your mind. That’s one of the biggest misconceptions. It’s about self-care and learning how to focus the mind—something that business leaders need in today’s hectic work environment. Incorporating meditation into your life can help reduce stress, improve decision-making, enhance creativity and increase emotional resilience.
Meditation is gaining traction in the U.S. as more and more people realize its benefits. Meditation-only studios are starting to pop up—as opposed to yoga studios that offer some meditation. Meditation apps, such as Buddhify, Calm, and the Mindfulness App, are gaining in popularity. Businesses like Google, Ford Motor Company, McKesson and American Express are offering senior executives training in meditation programs to enhance leadership skills.
Exercising your mind is just as important as exercising your body. Work is stressful. There are deadlines, not enough hours in the day to get your job done, obnoxious people to deal with and too much email to sort. Three-fourths of Americans believe that workers today have more on-the-job stress than people did a generation ago, according to a report by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Unfortunately, this frantic work culture and its associated stress level can have a negative impact on your health, relationships and productivity. One way to lower stress and combat the frenetic pace of life today is to learn how to stop, breathe and be mindful.
Learn To Be Present In The Moment
One form of meditation called mindfulness meditation is centered on learning how to be present and mindful of your surroundings. Jon Kabat Zinn, founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, defines mindfulness as: “The awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.”
Formal meditation is inherently mindful no matter what type of technique you are employing because you are bringing a multi-pointed focus and reining it into a singular focus on something like your breath, explains Laurie Angress, a certified yoga therapist, at Mindful Yoga Therapy, who teaches an eight-week mindfulness meditation program for teens and works with adults to incorporate mindfulness into their daily lives. Mindfulness can also be informal and incorporated into your daily routine such as hand washing, driving or eating, she says. For example, if you bring mindful attention to hand washing, you are focusing all of your senses on that experience. You are feeling the temperature of the water and soap on your hands, hearing the water, smelling the soap and seeing what is in front of you. “It’s like a reset,” Angress says. “When you are scattered throughout the day, take a moment and bring all of your attention to your senses. I call it ‘come to your senses.’”
Research shows that 15 minutes of mindfulness-based meditation results in more rational thinking when making business decisions. Studies have also found that leaders who focus on mindfulness at work tend to have happier employees and improved morale. In addition, mindfulness meditation can help reduce chronic lower back pain and insomnia.
Rich Pierson, co founder of the meditation app Headspace, says when you learn to meditate, the mind and body begins to calm down resulting in a greater sense of ease in every area of life. “If you can focus on a subtle, boring object like your breath, then focusing on a work problem is a walk in the park.”
Add Mindfulness To Your Daily Routine
Business leaders interested in how mindfulness can help them gain better focus at meetings and enhance leadership skills should start with just five minutes of meditation per day, Angress advises. Determine a certain place or time of day and just do it. No props required. “Meditation is a having a relationship with your self and knowing the contents of your mind to get the most out of your mind. It is your brain exercise,” she says. Once the five minutes starts to feel short, you can easily move to 10 minutes and then up to a half hour or two 20-minute sessions throughout the day. The mind settles more quickly with practice because you are able to notice and train your thoughts to float away easier, notes Angress. “The focus on the breath becomes more comfortable and enjoyable.”
Newcomers can also download an app like Headspace, which provides guided daily meditation through programs like “Take 10,” a free service that eases people into meditation. It teaches the basics of meditation and mindfulness in bite size 10-minute chunks, says Pierson. These types of apps are great for beginners because it’s easier for them to follow someone else’s words, Angress says, adding that people shouldn’t exclusively use apps because you are missing out on the experience of having a teacher who can provide immediate and targeted advice throughout the process.
You can also incorporate informal mindfulness into your workday with these four strategies.
1. Stop checking email constantly. Executives can spend almost their entire workday simply checking email on their computer or smartphones. Rather than constantly looking at your inbox and responding to emails immediately, set parameters and be mindful of your time. Decide how many times per day and when you will check email so you are not distracted by the constant need or feeling that you have to respond right now.
2. Turn off notifications on your phone. Most people immediately look at their phone when it pings them that someone has posted something on social media. Turn off those alerts and determine how often you will interact on social media. It can be a huge time suck and add to your feeling of being overwhelmed.
3. Pause before hitting send. Take a minute—or 10 minutes—before you hit send on an email or text message to reread your message. This pause between action and reaction is part of mindful awareness.
4. Download a meditation app. There are a variety of meditation apps to help you. Find one that suits your needs. For example, some apps allow you to set a soothing sound, length of time and offer a calming image to focus on. Others provide meditations that target what you need, such as meditations for work, going to sleep and when travelling.
Meditating five minutes per day will help you become a better leader. It isn’t going to become the next fitness craze, says Pierson. “It’s been around for over 3,000 years. That’s a pretty long fad. We like to think of it as a life skill that is backed by science.” This is a reliable tool that executives can use to train their mind. To be a more effective leader, you have to work at it every day.
From: Forbes