Just a few years ago when I was starting to speak to groups within organizations about mindfulness and nutrition, I never thought it would be as popular in the workplace as it is now. Now, coming from a consultative practice and presenting mindfulness tools on behalf of one of the largest healthcare companies in the world, it isn’t only for yogis and individuals that are soul searching for purpose and peace. It’s also not just for large companies that are now teaching mindfulness, such as Google and General Mills. It’s always been for everyone and there’s a collective movement amongst us all to stop, ground and breathe. I’ll admit that practicing mindfulness or even wrapping my head around what mindfulness really was, hasn’t exactly been easy. It felt out of context and abstract especially when your science brain has to meet your feeling brain! It felt something only the Dalai Lama could achieve or something we needed to take months or years at a time off of work and our lives to solely find our ‘practice’ around presence. When speaking to those that haven’t ever practiced these tools, I can sense so many feel the same way. That’s why I wanted to write a little bit about mindfulness in the workplace and in our personal lives with a few easy explanations and tools.

So what is mindfulness? This doesn’t mean we ‘zone out’ or become a blank slate within our minds like so many of us think it means. It simply means to stay in the present moment without judgment; of yourself or your surroundings, thoughts and emotions. What this does is reduce stress by bringing focus to the now, instead of past regrets and future worries, where so many of us spend our thinking and feeling time. How many times have you wanted to be ‘un-stressed’? Simply acknowledging that you’re stressed and not judging that, takes a bunch of the pressure off, right? Neuroscience shows measurable effects on the body and the brain that is brought to you by mindfulness. This is so useful now, even amongst kids and the reduction of ADHD and negative thought patterns in adults that it’s made so much headway into the workplace. We truly need it and we need easy attainable tools.

How and when can we use this? Workplace stress has become more and more consuming with so many different intra-office chat tools, reminders, social media competitiveness, and general multi-tasking that can be more effective if we single tasked instead. Sometimes there is so much information overload that disconnection can overwhelm us in our personal and professional lives. The best time to practice are those first few minutes upon waking in the morning and those last few minutes before bed. However, these are the times that are best so that we have the tools to use them midday, say after a stressful event at work or to regain focus on a time consuming project.

Mindfulness can do that; improve our focus and regulate our attention span. My favorite way to practice mindfulness is a grounding exercise using your five senses. The great news about this exercise is you can do this exercise just about anywhere and just about anytime once you’re tuned in on how to use it. The best case scenario, is of course sitting comfortably somewhere with both feet flat on the ground, with your back against the wall or somewhere to support your back. Try this first and practice this on your own, so that when and if you need the tools during your day, improvisation is all you need. To rewind for a second, your back needs support during this grounding meditation since this is how humans innately feel the safest.

Using our five senses to bring us to the present moment is a tool we use to ground our mental state. There are other exercises to ground and soothe our physical state and our emotional state, too. For this exercise, this will allow you to move from any overwhelming situation that may be fueled by anxiety and allow our brain to calm itself naturally, honing in on the task at hand and allowing our executive functioning to focus.

In a quiet place, rest your hands on top of your thighs and make sure you’re comfortable. Breathe in deeply, two to three counts inhaling, expanding the belly and exhaling for the same count of breath, contracting your belly. Allow the next five steps:

1. Choose five things you can see: is it your feet, your chair, the sun, a picture on the wall? Name their colors, read their words, name their shapes.
2. Choose four things you can feel: are your hands resting upon your thighs with jeans on? What does it feel like? Is it smooth or rough? Hold your coffee mug; is it hot or warm?
3. Choose three things you can hear: car horns? Birds chirping? Is your dog panting? Fingers on a keyboard?
4. Choose two things you can smell: freshly washed hair. Food from the kitchen or café at work, coffee?
5. Choose one thing you can taste: toothpaste, tea, mint?

To round out this grounding exercising, when you stand up from where you’re sitting, touch two of the objects that came into vision during this grounding exercise. This solidifies your practice in the present moment.

Five Benefits of Mindfulness:

1. Enhances cognitive function
2. Improves productivity and attention span
3. Reduces stress and reactivity (responses)
4. Positively relates to insightful judgement
5. Improves anxiety, depression and chronic pain

So many times we can drift off to moments of the past, or future worries. Just practicing a few tools to stay right here, even if it feels uncomfortable using these five steps, should help you feel calmer and more resilient and focused on the present moment. This will not only help you in the here and now, but fuel your immune system positively and rebalance your neurobiologic state. ^(1-2)

References:

1. P. Healey, G. P. Hodgkinson. The Tavistock Institute. Rethinking the philosophical and theoretical foundations of organizational neuroscience: A critical realist alternative. 2014.
2. A. Drain, PhD. Mindfulness in the Workplace.