Author: Matthew Davis / Source: Big Think
While the trend towards mindfulness is a pleasant idea, it might not actually be solving anything.
- Roughly 22% of companies offer mindfulness training programs to their employees… but it doesn’t appear to be paying off.
- Meditation itself can truly improve overall health and wellbeing. Yet that that doesn’t translate to increased performance.
- Financial desire and the stresses of the regular office may be more of a motivator than achieving mindfulness.
It makes sense that the idea of harnessing one’s mental potential, developing a monk-like focus, and dealing with the stresses of the day with calm equanimity would appeal to business owners and workers. The CEOs of Salesforce, Tupperware, and other corporations claim to meditate daily. Roughly 22% of companies offer mindfulness training programs to their employees. One would expect a burst of Zen-powered productivity from such training, but mindfulness in the workplace may not be quite as desirable is it seems.
Mindfulness, the key feature of most, if not all, meditation practices, is a non-judgmental awareness of the present moment, a specific and self-regulated method of paying attention. This sounds like it would be fantastic for a business—who wouldn’t want a worker focused squarely on the task at hand? In contrast, a recent study demonstrated that mindfulness practices may impair workers’ motivation to complete a given task.
The study carried out a series of five experiments, each designed to replicate the kind of work one would be doing in an office.
One experiment had participants editing the cover letters of a potential job-seeker. Another had them copy the terms and conditions of a software program, while another had participants brainstorm as many creative uses for a brick as possible. Unless you work for a brick factory, these aren’t exactly the kind of tasks you would be performing at work. However, they flex…The post Does workplace meditation actually work? appeared first on FeedBox.