10 Office Meditation Techniques For Employee Health
In the current competitive business world, it is vital to maintain one’s cool in every scenario. Though this is not easy amidst the occasional feelings of stress and anxiety, it is crucial for one’s mental health. A troubled mind clouds one's ability for better judgment and rational decision-making abilities.
In contrast, an employee with a calm mind and body will make better decisions and maximize productivity. So, all employees must work without stressful thoughts. Simple office meditation techniques can help a lot in this aspect of relieving a tense state of mind.
It is because there are many benefits of meditation at the workplace on one’s mental health and overall wellness. It helps:
- Reduce workplace stress
- Slows down the aging process
- Increases emotional stability
- Cultivates positive thinking
- Increases focus
- Helps sleep better
- Makes for a happier person overall
Keeping in mind its numerous positives, employees meditating at work will positively influence the work environment. Also, meditation doesn’t require much space or cost. Furthermore, this makes it an excellent employee wellness program idea.
Keeping this in mind, here are five easy office meditation techniques for your workers to start first.
10 Easy Office Meditation Techniques For Employee Health
1. Diaphragmatic Breathing
This breathing technique is a great way to calm one’s mind in tough times. Do you notice that people in stress experience shortness in breathing at their moment of despair? It is because of the human ego that troubles our feelings and makes us uneasy in these moments.
Practicing diaphragmatic breathing can reverse this effect of shortness in breath. To do this, an individual must breathe through the nose while thinking of the abdomen like a balloon. While inhaling, the person must feel the air pushing its way into all the directions. These can be the spine, rib cage, groin, etc.
The participant must continue to inhale until he/she feels the balloon is full and follow exhaling deeply. The trick here is to inhale as deep as possible. If this breathing procedure seems harsh at first, then one should concentrate on emptying the lungs while exhaling.
After emptying the lungs, it will be easier to take in a deeper inhale the next time around.
2. Calming Visualization
In this technique, the participant needs to recall one of his/her favorite natural spots. It can be one from childhood. To do this, the person must close their eyes, relax, and take a few deep breaths.
After one is relaxed, the participant must recall that spot and try to re-live the scenery- the trees, mountains, clouds, etc. Make the mind free to feel that space for a while. Practicing this technique can help achieve peaceful equanimity.
3. Extended Exhale
Work can be very tiring at times. It is essential in times like this for the mind to rest for a while. Here, the extended exhaling technique can help you achieve this rested state of mind. It calms the body by promoting the parasympathetic nervous system, thereby slowing the heart rate and allowing rest.
To do this, one must first examine their breathing pattern at that present moment. It can be either long or short. After reviewing this, one must take deep breathes, fully inhaling, and exhaling. Then one must extend the exhale in comparison to the inhale.
For example, the participant must count in the mind while exhaling like inhale 1, inhale 2, so on. If it takes 3 inhales to make one deep breath, it should be 4 exhale to let that breathe out. One must do this technique for 5-8 minutes before returning to normal breathing.
4. Triangle Breathing
This technique is particularly helpful to ease off from a heated situation. Triangle breathing technique helps balance one’s body and cool down the mind.
To start this, an individual must take a normal breath, followed by a deep breath. After this, one must count the breath like the technique stated above. The difference in this technique is that the individual must keep the counts uniform in the process.
If it takes 3 inhales to breathe in, it must take 3 exhales to let the breath out. Here, one must also hold the breath in for the same count as inhale and exhale. Thus, completing a triangle of breathing.
5. Alternate Nostril Breathing
This is one of the easiest and oldest technique in the book. It is also a very beneficial technique in the workplace because it helps reduce stress levels and balances the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
To do this, one must place the right hand across the face and block the right nostril with the thumb. After this, inhale through the left nostril, hold, and unblock the right nostril to exhale. While exhaling, the individual must block the left nostril with his/her ring finger.
After this, practice the same procedure the other way around. This is the alternate nostril breathing technique.
These were five of the easy office meditation techniques for your employee health. Practicing these techniques for even 15 minutes per day will help your workforce a lot. It would help if you also held seminars on meditation program with professionals for even better results.
6. Use Vantagefit App and listen to a guided meditation Session
Vantage Fit is a comprehensive corporate wellness platform dedicated to transforming workplace wellness. It is an engaging platform that helps its users to track their wellness activities smoothly.
Users can create a customized profile and listen to some of the guided meditation sessions under the supervision of health experts. There are options of indulging in mindful sessions ranging from 5 minutes to 18 minutes, depending on the preference.
8 minutes of mindful exercise, 18 minutes of affectionate breathing, etc are some of the options which have helped thousands of employees.
7. Sound Healing
Sound healing is a practice that helps an individual deal with stress and tension by assisting the brain waves to come back to a state of mindfulness.
It is an ancient method of reviving the mental, physical and spiritual levels to a state of balance.
Some common forms of Sound therapies include:
- Nordoff-Robbins
- Tuning fork therapy
- Brainwave entrainment
- Guided meditation
- Neurologic music therapy
- Bonny Method
- Sound baths
8. Silent Mantra Meditation
The practice of mantra meditation involves the silent repetition of a word or phrase. The word is made the focal point of achieving a state of higher awareness. It aids the employee in slowing down the mental activity and calms the nerves.
The goal of mantra meditation is to expand awareness so one can get more comfortable observing their thoughts on a regular basis.
The more an employee practices this technique, the more they start to notice getting more present inherently. The mind gradually tends to wander less and employees are composed in their work. It helps employees to cultivate a greater sense of love, compassion, and understanding for the co-workers and the work environment in general.
9. Walking Meditation
Walking meditation requires the employee to be aware consciously during the activity of walking. It allows one to appreciate the pleasure of walking.
It is easier to execute for beginners, as walking is part of our daily life activity. This motion of walking helps in becoming more aware of the body. In walking meditation, one becomes aware of every step, emotion, and breath one takes.
Walking meditation helps in lowering stress, anxiety and improves sleep. It increases focus & concentration and helps the individual to know their body better. It is also great for mental health, helps in forming a connection with nature. Employees can easily do this during their work hours in the office.
10. Yogic Meditation
Yogic Meditation is one of the most common meditation techniques. It is gaining popularity quite quickly across the workstations. It is based on the principles of Yoga Sutras, written by ancient Indian physician Patanjali.
Yoga primarily involves a meditation practice, where the focus is on concentrating and stilling the mind. During Yogic Meditation, employees have to choose a particular object to base their concentration, until a final state of tranquility is achieved.
There are various yoga positions that can be inculcated with the meditation to collaborate the physical and the mental wellness of the employee.
Conclusion
In the business world, maintaining mindfulness is very important from both the employee and the employer's point of view. While for employees, it promotes better mental health; for employers, it maximizes productivity.
Study shows that meditation helps in improving productivity by 120%. This is a number that no employer can turn down. Practicing regular meditation also helps an employer fight workplace stress, build better employee health, and project a caring image to its workforce.
It is for these reasons why you must encourage mindfulness meditation at the workplace. Better yet, we recommend you start immediately!
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