Discover workplace mindfulness
What is mindfulness? In simple terms, mindfulness means being conscious and aware. It’s being attentive to what’s happening both internally and externally, and noticing this with curiosity and without judgement. By consciously observing your direct experience, you can take control of your thoughts, feelings and emotions without getting swept up by them, and work positively to enhance your work routine and environment, interactions, focus and concentration.
From an organisational perspective, studies have found countless benefits of mindfulness in the workplace. They include:
Reduced stress and burnout: A recent study conducted by the University of Nottingham discovered that mindfulness can protect against work-related stress and burnout.
Improved cognitive capacity: Mindfulness has also been found to improve both attention and working memory, with one study noting positive physical changes within the brain.
Open mindedness and enhanced collaboration: Interestingly, mindfulness has been found to reduce biased thinking and decision making.
More resilient teams: enhanced flexibility and adaptability has been noted in teams practising mindfulness.
Self-aware leaders: Mindfulness aids self-awareness, which in turn results in greater leaders.
Tackling mindfulness myths
You’ve made the decision to invest in a mindfulness programme in your workplace, that’s great! Your next step is to engage with your fellow employees and invite them to participate. One of the tasks you may encounter as part of this process is dispelling the myths surrounding mindfulness. Here are some of the myths we have encountered recently, and how you could respond to them:
Myth: My mind is too busy and chatty to engage with mindfulness.
Response: Everyone has a chatty mind. Research tells us that nearly 50 % of the time we are all engaging with unhelpful ‘chatter’. Mindfulness will help you notice this, providing a window of opportunity to respond skilfully to difficult thoughts, feelings and emotions.
Myth: Mindfulness is a spiritual practice and I don’t feel comfortable with it for religious reasons.
Response: Thank them for sharing these concerns with you. Mindfulness is suitable for any belief or culture as it is a skills-based stress management tool recommended by NICE in clinical and nonclinical settings.
Myth: Mindfulness will make me apathetic and avoid the things I am finding difficult.
Response: The purpose of mindfulness is quite the opposite. It will help you see what you are finding difficult and cultivate wise action.
Myth: Once I begin mindfulness everything will be ok.
Response: Mindfulness is one of many tools you can use to support your emotional life.
Myth: It’s a fad, and isn’t backed up by science.
Response: Hundreds of scientific studies have been conducted by reputable institutions (Oxford, Bangor, Harvard, Stanford etc), detailing the many benefits of mindfulness.
Myth: I don’t need mindfulness, running and exercise is my meditation.
Response: It’s great that you have running and exercise in your life. Mindfulness will help cultivate a still mind with more opportunities for personal insight into our daily lives including stumbling blocks to growth and happiness, quiet reflection, and even support you in your hobbies.
How could a mindfulness programme help you?
When it comes to mindfulness within a workplace setting, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Whilst an R&D team may be turning to mindfulness to enhance the problem solving skills of their team, a corporate team may be seeking ways to enhance resilience and adaptability following a merger or restructure. One of the most common things we hear when we begin a mindfulness programme is “what can we do to support our team to cope with stress and pressure”. Whilst mindfulness will equip employees with vital stress management skills, this must go hand in hand with a review of culture and working practices. In Victoria’s words, “I can train people in stress management skills all day long, but if working practices are misaligned to human flourishing, you will still get stressed employees.”
Our services
Minds That Work offers a range of services, which can be scaled up or down based on the size of your team and the level of intervention required.
Mindfulness taster sessions: We can offer a range of taster sessions to engage teams on a number of mindfulness topics. These can include an introduction to mindfulness, mythbusting, the neuroscience of mindfulness and more.
Eight week mindfulness course for employees: For organisations seeking a deeper dive into mindfulness, we offer a nationally recognised mindfulness course called WorkplaceMT. This evidence based programme, validated by the CMI (Chartered Management Institute), combines theory with practice over eight weekly 1-hour sessions to empower employees to incorporate mindfulness into many aspects of work, and beyond.
Eight week mindfulness course for managers and leaders: Specifically developed for individuals leading projects and teams, our WorkplaceMT course, validated by the CMI (Chartered Management Institute) for managers and leaders focuses on key mindfulness skills including thoughts and perceptions, working in challenging situations and self-awareness. The aim of this programme is to empower individuals to be greater leaders through sustained mindfulness practice.
Bespoke programmes: As noted above, many organisations may have specific challenges they wish to address through a mindfulness programme. We can work with organisations of all sizes, both in the UK and globally, to develop bespoke, evidence-based mindfulness programmes.
Weekly ‘breath easy’ sessions: For organisations seeking to invest in continued mindfulness practice, we provide weekly 30-minute ‘breath easy’ workshops. Teams can drop into a virtual call for 30-minutes for a weekly refresher on mindfulness, a short mindfulness exercise, and take a short-break for their busy working week.
1-2-1 coaching programme: Based on coaching principles from the WorkplaceMT course and The Centre for Stress Management, the goal is to help individuals better understand and manage their mental and emotional health, gaining strategies to thrive at work and beyond.
"I now have new techniques to use when feeling stressed and anxious. I have really gained an appreciation of mindfulness, something I initially didn't believe would help me. I was wrong, it totally has, and I have benefited with reduced anxiety."
"Thank you. I began my day quite anxious with thoughts of panic in meetings, but after our session I managed to sustain a pretty anxiety-free day. I could feel it creep up at times, but overall I managed it well. I really believe this was thanks to what I've learnt in our mindfulness sessions."
