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The Ultimate Guide to Mindfulness in the Workplace

Thu, 21 May 2020 23:06:16 -0700

Mindfulness training in the workplace is a proven wellness incentive that increases employee retention and improves upon skills required to be competitive in today’s commercial environment. More and more companies, including the giants Apple, Google, Nike and Salesforce, are offering mindfulness training to their employees as an investment with a financial benefit in reduced absenteeism and increased productivity.

Workplace wellness programs have been shown to result in 11% higher revenue per employee and 1.8 fewer days absent per employee per year¹. For every $1.00 spent on wellness programs, medical costs fall by approximately $3.27 and absenteeism costs fall approximately $2.73.² Employees who experience high stress cost employers almost 50 per cent more in health expenditures, while stress related absenteeism accounts for $3.5 billion of extra costs to Canadian companies each year.³

This guide reviews everything you need to know to implement mindfulness training in your workplace.

Who is this for?

When mindfulness is built into the fabric of the workplace, everyone benefits. Even families and the community benefit. Here are some specific reasons why you should introduce mindfulness to your office.

For leaders, mindfulness means:

Improved mental clarity and open-mindedness. This helps you recognize your team members’ strengths and weaknesses so you can distribute projects more effectively, keeping your team motivated and engaged.
Being tuned in to what your team needs to be successful. It will help you lead with awareness of what’s real for your team now, which may be different than yesterday, and to respond more effectively.
Having a growth mindset. Recognizing your ability to improve your own skills and talents with focused effort; and, doing the same with your team to be the best in your business.
Being...Read More

Mindful Eating for More Enjoyment

Tue, 29 Jan 2019 10:42:08 -0800

Food is a massive part of our lives. Whether you enjoy it or not, you need to eat a few times a day to stay alive, healthy and energetic. According to Statistics Canada, we spend between 48 minutes and 90 minutes every day eating¹. At an average of 69 minutes each day, that adds up to 8 hours and 3 minutes each week; 32 hours and 12 minutes each month; and 1,674 hours and 15 minutes each year!

Every one of us has a different relationship with food, which can vary throughout our lifetime. We may experience strong emotions when we think about food, plan our meals, remember what we ate earlier, or when we're actually eating. Or we may feel few emotions surrounding food, eating for sustenance and not giving it much thought.

Regardless of what food means to you at this time in your life, one way to make eating more enjoyable, and to improve your health at the same time, is to practice mindful eating. This simply means paying more attention to what you're eating, while you're eating it. Slowing down and paying attention to the whole process of eating can make each meal feel like a self-care ritual - which it actually can be!

Start by taking a few seconds to really look at the food you've set out in front of you. Notice the colours on your plate; the textures; the variety of ingredients. Consider where it all came from: the truck drivers who drove the ingredients to your grocery store; the farmers who grew the crops and fed the animals; the sun that nourished all of them.

As you dig in, slow down and become aware of your movements. Pay attention to how each bite tastes. Notice the textures and flavours intermingling in your mouth. Chew each bite focusing on the act of eating - don’t do anything else while you’re chewing. Simply chew and pay attention. After you swallow, rest for a few seconds,...Read More

Mindful Management of Back Pain

Mon, 12 Nov 2018 09:54:21 -0800

Back pain. It’s highly likely that those two words alone triggered some type of negative reaction in your mind. Whether you have experienced it in the past, are dealing with it right now, or know of someone who has gone through a tough time because of it, back pain affects almost everyone. It is the leading cause of disability worldwide and is one of the most common reasons people miss work.

How Back Pain Changed My Life

I can completely sympathize with anyone who has experienced intense back pain as I have been down that path. In the last semester of my last year of law school, I woke up one morning to excruciating pain along my entire spine. From that moment on, my life completely changed. I could barely walk and couldn’t sit, so I couldn’t go to class. I couldn’t focus on my books long enough to get any work done. I couldn’t grocery shop for myself or socialize.

Multiple MRIs indicated that I had a herniated disc in my lower spine, however the extent of the pain did not line up with the extent of the herniation. I tried everything to manage the pain: countless visits to doctors and specialists; X-rays and MRIs; chiropractics, acupuncture, a steroid injection into the disc; way too many painkillers. Nothing helped.

After almost two years of trying every therapy I could find and having very little success, I started deeply questioning why the pain had arisen in the first place. I had practiced yoga almost every day for 10 years and was healthy and fit – not someone you’d expect to have this problem.

Enter: Meditation

There are an infinite number of causes behind back pain and each person’s pain experience is different, which is why it is such a difficult problem to treat. Often, no single condition can be pinpointed as the cause of the pain and after going through all of the recommended treatments, the victim is still left with no idea why...Read More

Want to save time?

Thu, 08 Nov 2018 12:05:34 -0800

Time is invaluable nowadays. We're all trying to save time. That's the primary purpose of most of our modern gadgets and technology - apps that save us time paying our bills, ordering groceries, paying for parking, learning new skills faster. We want to minimize the amount of time we spend doing things we don't enjoy, so that we can spend more time doing the things we do enjoy,

Yet at the same time, we are more distracted than ever before in history because of the never-ending stream of information, news and advertising continually vying for our attention at all times of day and night. This overwhelming stream of stimulation has decreased our attention spans to unprecedented levels.

We think we're good at multi-tasking, but the latest brain science tells us that multi-tasking is actually impossible and when we think we're doing it we're actually switching really quickly between tasks. We are distracted or distract ourselves every 3 minutes on average, and "multitasking" causes us to take 50% longer to complete tasks and make 50% more mistakes, which have to then be corrected.¹ This is kind of insanity.

"Even if we were to live for a thousand years, our lives would feel short if we threw away the time we actually had at our disposal.”

- Erling Kagge

Want to save time? Focus on one task at a time without getting distracted.

How to improve your focus?

Practice mindfulness meditation.

Mindfulness means paying attention to what is going on in the present moment without judging your experience. When you're aware of what is going on right now (it’s always now), you will notice when you get distracted and correct it quickly. You will be more focused on the task at hand because you're paying attention to it, rather than being there physically while your mind wanders in every other direction. You will notice that you're wasting time on Instagram or Youtube way sooner than you...Read More

Emotional Intelligence - Why should you care?

Wed, 27 Jun 2018 06:39:39 -0700

Emotional Intelligence - Why should you care?

Every moment of our lives we experience emotions or feelings. Take 10 seconds right now to notice what emotion(s) you’re feeling. As I type this and my cat is trying to get my attention in front of the laptop screen, I feel love for her, a bit annoyed, happy, grateful, and now that she just headbutted me, more love.

This morning I’ve already felt: anxiety, confusion, sadness, excitement, hope, pride, calm and compassion. And it’s only 10am.

What about you? Do you pay attention to your emotional life? Do emotions arise in the background of your life as you go about your daily business, allowing the emotions to come up and pass calmly without largely affecting your decisions and actions? Or are you often unaware of the moods you’re in, allowing your feelings to dictate your thoughts and actions, which follow your latest mood rather than what is always best for you?

If you’re in the latter category, you’re not alone. The majority of us are not aware of the multitude of emotions that descend upon us daily and which exert incredible influence over our decisions when we are unaware of them.

This is what emotional intelligence is: being aware of the emotions and thoughts that arise in your body and mind, and responding to them appropriately in your best interest. This is a learned skill, and with practice it not only makes your own life flow more smoothly but improves your understanding of other people’s actions and feelings, therefore improving the relationships in your life and avoiding a lot of drama.

Emotional intelligence also has a surprisingly intimate connection with your physical health: emotional states play a significant role in our vulnerability to disease and in the ability to recover from physical and mental setbacks. Emotions like anxiety, stress and anger tax our central nervous system which is essential for proper immune function, and release stress hormones...Read More

Spring Cleaning the Subtler Levels of your Life

Sat, 17 Mar 2018 11:23:46 -0700

Spring is (almost) among us and this means spring cleaning! Clearing out our closets and freshening up our wardrobes. Planting flowers. Taking deep breaths of fresh, spring air. Going for a jog without a parka – dreamy!

Not only do our gardens, bodies and wardrobes need to be cleaned up and revitalized, but this is also a perfect time of year to take inventory over what you are filling your life with on more subtle levels – mentally, emotionally, spiritually – and to determine if your current priorities are helping you move towards where you want to go. Transitioning out of the colder months, when many of us tend to hibernate (as nature intends for us to do), there is a natural push to let the heavier, slower, more cumbersome aspects of our lives drop to make room for fresher, lighter, more playful interests. So let’s take advantage!

Here is an exercise that you can do in 15 minutes to determine where you’re currently placing your energy, assess whether it’s being well-allocated, and if not, re-direct it. By the time summer comes around you will be where you want to be, feeling great and on the move.

Step 1: Meditate

In order to have the capability of stepping back and assessing your life honestly, it is necessary that your mind is not overflowing with last week’s stresses and tomorrow’s anxieties. To be honest and gentle with yourself, you need to take a few minutes to sit by yourself in silence, breathe deeply to relax your nervous system, come into the present and notice how you feel in this exact moment in time.

A simple way to do this is to find a comfortable seat, close your eyes and take five deep, slow, elongated breaths. Then let your breath return to its natural rhythm and notice how that feels as it moves through your body, each cycle causing it to gently lift and expand, then subtly release and ground. Pay attention to every detail you can about your breath for a couple of...Read More

Stop Waiting

Tue, 16 Jan 2018 11:45:54 -0800

Stop waiting.
For the weekend.
For summer.
For things to calm down.
For whatever place of perfect non-stress you imagine exists where everything falls into place arrives – it may never come!

Improving your health and finding more peace of mind takes small, healthy choices that you can start right now. Drink one extra glass of water a day. Take a deep breath and relax your body once every hour. And if you’ve been curious about meditation or have been thinking of trying it out, do it! Just 5 minutes a day will begin to change your life. There is absolutely no reason to wait a single day to start this. No more excuses.

Sitting down once every day for 5 minutes and relaxing your body. Dropping your shoulderblades down your back and opening your chest. Focusing on the feeling of your breath. Then watching frustration arise as you notice how bad you are at focusing. Then noticing boredom creep in. Then pondering what the point of this is. Then convincing yourself you’re doing it wrong. Then being hard on yourself for not succeeding in this. Then thinking of what you need to do that’s more important than this. Then noticing that you’re clenching your jaw and relaxing it a bit. And eventually coming back to focusing on your breath. That’s meditating!

Five simple minutes of stillness in which you give yourself the time to tune into yourself, become curious about your thought patterns, focus on what you’re feeling for a change instead of being constantly controlled by your thoughts, which is so often our status quo. It becomes a chance to rest, to take a break from the demands of the outside world and come into the present moment, assess where you are right now, and give yourself the attention you deserve to stay healthy and sane.

By no means am I suggesting that your meditations will be calm and peaceful – they could be, but they can also follow along the lines of what I described above, at the beginning in particular. Either...Read More

Common Difficulties Starting a Meditation Practice

Sat, 23 Sep 2017 11:51:17 -0700

You’re convinced of all of the benefits of meditation and really believe it can improve your life. You’ve listened to some guided meditations, perhaps attended a group meditation session, and you understand the basics. However, when you make the intention to sit at home and practice, either it doesn’t happen at all or it is so difficult that you give up. You don’t have time. Your mind is too busy. It’s too uncomfortable. You just can’t do it.

These are extremely common thoughts at the beginning stages of establishing a meditation practice. All of these difficulties happen to almost everyone, so know that you are not alone! I felt this way when I started too and it took me years to get past some of these obstacles and really commit to meditating daily. And now that I’ve (mostly!) passed these initial challenges, I can share how you too can get past these hurdles.

Below are the most common issues that people I teach raise with me and some suggestions on how to deal with them.

1) Not enough time

Not having enough time is the most common complaint I receive. Your days are so busy – how are you supposed to stop doing everything for 10 minutes? It’s impractical.

Except that it’s the best thing you can do for yourself to allow the rest of your day to flow with ease. Putting this time aside for yourself allows you to restore, re-balance, and gives you mental space so that all of the thousands of thoughts swirling around in your head can organize themselves more efficiently. Most people come out of their meditation feeling refreshed, with more clarity, patience and focus to tackle the rest of the day’s tasks. Once you start meditating every day, your productivity will increase and you will find that you have even more time throughout the day than you did before!

Tips:

Set a timer that reminds you to meditate and DO IT. No excuses....Read More