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Fighting Stress in the Workplace

Work is stressful. There's no way around it. Even the best places to work have a little stress when you're looking at deadlines and deliverables.

Research has shown that stressed workers are less engaged, less productive, and have higher levels of absenteeism and turnover. What’s more, stressed employees have higher healthcare costs than their less-stressed peers. 

From depression to heart disease, the consequences of stress-related illnesses cost U.S. businesses nearly $200 billion a year. That figure is no laughing matter!

So where does meditation fit into this equation? Well, employers are beginning to pay more attention to employee wellbeing and investing in employee wellness solutions, including science-backed mindfulness training.

Workers in many high-stress occupations, such as healthcare professionals, call-center employees, and bankers, have experienced health benefits such as decreased stress after mindfulness training.

One study found that after 8 weeks of mindfulness training, nurses had significantly decreased stress levels and improvement in general health. The same improvements were sustained 4 months after the training.*

In another, employees of a call center working for a financial institution experienced decreased stress after listening to two short meditation sessions daily for 5 weeks. Bonus: The clients of these employees actually had increased satisfaction levels over time.*

A European study looked at a diverse sample of workers, including industrial clerks, bankers, hospitality service employees, retail salespersons, nurses, teachers, social workers, and psychologists. After 10 days of self-guided mindfulness exercises, participants reported decreased levels of emotional exhaustion.* 

Wellbeing in the workplace is a direct tie to the kind of work that your employees produce.

To learn more about how meditation.live can help improve employee health and happiness, visit www.meditation.live/team

SOURCES:

Bazarko, Cate, Azocar, Kreitzer. The Impact of an Innovative Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program on the Health and Well-Being of Nurses Employed in a Corporate Setting. J Workplace Behav Health. 2013 Apr; 28(2): 107–133. Creswell JD, Pacilio LE, Lindsay EK, Brown KW. Brief mindfulness meditation training alters psychological and neuroendocrine responses to social evaluative stress.Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2014 Jun;44:1-12. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2014.02.007. Epub 2014 Feb 23. Epel, Puterman, Lin, Blackburn, Lum, Beckmann, Zhu, Lee, Gilbert, Rissman, Tanzi & Schadt. Meditation and vacation effects have an impact on disease-associated molecular phenotypes. Translational Psychiatry volume6, pagee880 (2016) doi:10.1038/tp.2016.164. Grégoire, S. & Lachance, L. Mindfulness (2015) 6: 836. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-014-0328-9. Grossman P1, Niemann L, Schmidt S, Walach H. Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health benefits. A meta-analysis. J Psychosom Res. 2004 Jul;57(1):35-43. Hölzel BK, Carmody J, Vangel M, et al. Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry research. 2011;191(1):36-43. doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2010.08.006. Hölzel BK, Brunsch V, Gard T, et al. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Fear Conditioning, and The Uncinate Fasciculus: A Pilot Study. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. 2016;10:124. doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00124. Khoury, Sharma, Rush, Fournier. Mindfulness-based stress reduction for healthy individuals: A meta-analysis. J Psychosom Res. 2015 Jun;78(6):519-28. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2015.03.009. Epub 2015 Mar 20. Klatt, Buckworth, Malarkey Effects of Low-Dose Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR-ld) on Working Adults. Health Education and Behavior. Volume: 36 issue: 3, page(s): 601-614. Jayewardene, W., Lohrmann, D., Erbe, R., & Torabi, M. (2017). Effects of preventative online mindfulness interventions on stress and mindfulness: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Preventative Medicine Reports, 5, 150-159. Lazar SW, Kerr CE, Wasserman RH, et al. Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. Neuroreport. 2005;16(17):1893-1897. Lindsay, Young, Smyth, Brown, Creswell. Acceptance lowers stress reactivity: Dismantling mindfulness training in a randomized controlled trial. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 87 (2018) 63-73. Spijkerman, M. P. J., Pots, W. T. M., & Bohlmeijer, E. T. (2016). Effectiveness of online mindfulness-based interventions in improving mental health: A review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Clinical psychology review, 45, 102-114. L. Champion, M. Economides, C. Chandler. The efficacy of a brief app-based mindfulness program: a randomised controlled trial. Yang E, Schamber E, Meyer RML, Gold JI. Happier Healers: Randomized Controlled Trial of Mobile Mindfulness for Stress Management. J Altern Complement Med. 2018 Feb 8.

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