6 Reasons to Keep Meditating, Baby!

Like other healthy habits, meditation gets bumped down our to-do lists by crises, must-dos and have-tos. Here are 6 important reasons to keep going. 

1.  Exponential Benefits 
The health improvements of meditation are vast and grow like compound interest, but only if you meditate regularly. 

2.  Brain Power  
Neuroscience, the study of the brain, tells us meditation improves brain function, increasing clarity, compassion and positive mental attitude.

 3.  Heart Health 
Research shows meditation lowers blood pressure, reducing the chances of heart disease. 

4.  A Good Night's Sleep  
Meditation raises levels of melatonin, a hormone crucial for healthy sleep patterns. 

5.  Anger Management 
Because it increases compassion and emotional intelligence, research suggests meditation might actually make you a nicer person - less reactive, more responsive. 

6.  Inner Peace
When you meditate regularly, you become addicted to the relaxation, inner peace, and clarity that permeate your days.  It feels so good, and the benefits are so life-changing, you won't want to skip a day.

I promise, if you'll just hang in there, push through the excuses and distractions, and commit to a daily practice of meditation, you will be thrilled with the results. You'll never know unless you try!  Prove it to yourself.    

Will Meditation at Work Become a Thing?

Once upon a time, there was no such thing as a wellness program at work.  Even though there were a lot of health and wellness people saying health and wellness should be supported at work, work did not care, so work did not have wellness programs. 

Then, work began to notice that lots of dollars were being thrown at health problems related to unhealthy workers, and work started to care about health.  Hence, workplace wellness programs were born. 

Flash forward to now and you’re hard pressed to find a company without some kind of wellness plan in place.  In fact, 92% of larger companies have wellness programs.  HR departments have wellness budgets, even wellness specialists!  And, as employees get fatter, sicker and unhealthier, these wellness programs must expand and grow to combat the ever-skyrocketing cost of health care and all things related to employees being unhealthy.

While smoking cessation and weight loss have been the prevalent wellness programs in recent years, there is a new (really not so new) health concern rocking the HR world, and it’s wreaking havoc on health care costs, absenteeism, employee turnover and productivity. 

Stress 

Stress is killing work.  Not only is it making people sick, depressed and anxious, but the higher stress levels rise, the lower employee engagement plummets.  Disengaged employees are poor producers.  That is a one-two punch to the gut of the bottom line, and bad news for work.

Guess what?  Now work cares about stress, so work must find ways to reduce it.  Enter, meditation! 

There have been over 1,000 scientific papers written about the benefits of meditation in the past twenty years.  Research shows meditation reduces stress and improves mental, emotional, and physical health.  Additionally, Harvard Business School has stated, “The two most effective business tools for twenty-first century executives are meditation and intuition.”

Many companies across the country have launched stress reduction initiatives such as meditation instruction and support, with good results.  The trend is catching on and gaining in popularity.  Since stress has been identified as the number one contributor to illness, it must be dealt with.  So yes, meditation at work will become a thing.  It’s well on its way. 

Employee Empowerment: Benevolence or Good Business Sense?

Recent research shows that roughly half of Americans hate their job, and according to Gallup, fewer than three in 10 workers say they’re engaged at work.

EmployEES be like:

 EmployERS be like:

I have one word for you:  empowerment.  

When workers feel empowered, they are more engaged, dedicated, and innovative.

"Treat employees like they make a difference, and they will."  This is a quote from Jim Goodnight, co-founder and CEO of North Carolina-based business analytics software giant, SAS.  In the height of the 2009 recession, while other companies were cutting jobs like crazy, Goodnight stated publicly that SAS would absolutely not have any layoffs, and he kept his promise.  Can you imagine the collective sigh of relief at SAS that year?

Goodnight's company is known for treating employees well and offering perks such as flextime, childcare, and on-site medical care.  They're big on work-life balance and measuring productivity by what workers accomplish instead of how many hours they're chained to a desk.

Wondering if all the warm fuzzies get in the way of success?  In 2009, while other companies were tanking, SAS saw a 2.2 percent increase in revenues over the previous year's, and the company is regularly voted, "world's best place to work."  Additionally, since the 1970's, SAS has seen consecutive revenue growth every year.

Empowerment Begets Engagement

Everyone wants to feel like they matter.  Nobody wants to be micro-managed.  Here are some tips to increase employee empowerment:

• Let them do their job.  People need autonomy not babysitting.
• Support them.  Make sure they have all the resources they need to be successful.
• Give them time.  Flextime is a cheap way to keep employees happy.
• Insist on work-life balance.  
• Increase your wellness budget.  Help them take charge of their health.

How to Initiate Employee Empowerment

I believe offering and supporting meditation in the workplace is the place to start.  It's sort of like the "teach a man to fish" theory.  External incentives are great, but if you teach a person to go to the inner, reduce their own stress and tap their intuition, you are empowering them to make better personal and professional choices.  Studies show meditation not only reduces stress, it increases mental clarity, enhances compassion, and improves productivity and innovation.  This translates into better lifestyle choices, increased collaboration, better conflict resolution and more engaged employees.

We are stepping into the era of the individual. Companies who care about each employee will thrive.  Just ask Jim Goodnight, who oh by the way happens to be one of America's wealthiest people, with a net worth of over $7 billion.