31 Mar Meditation – The Wellness Benefit Employees Need
The Harvard Business Review team recently surveyed 1500 working professionals across 46 countries to figure out the pandemic’s impact on personal and professional wellbeing. The results were astounding and started a debate on many organizations’ employee wellness programs and offerings.
- 85% of the people surveyed reported that their general well-being had declined
- 89% stated that their workplace wellbeing had declined
- 56% said their job demands have increased, and 24% stated that they feel less connected.
When the Harvard team asked more in-depth questions, 50% responded that their mental health had taken a toll and reported increased stress, anxiety, and burnout.
“Coping with the pervasive anxiety and worry during this pandemic takes up a lot of bandwidth; needing to work through that means I am expending more energy than normal to manage the noise in my head. It is exhausting. I am too tired to work out; I am too tired to FaceTime with friends or family; I am too tired to cook healthy meals.” – Anonymous Employee.
How can organizations manage all the stress and anxiety employees face at the workplace? Most organizations choose to embrace a host of employee wellness programs that encourage employees to focus on physical and mental wellbeing. The employee wellness business is now an eight billion dollar industry. Let’s spend some time examining the evolution of this industry.
The Evolution of the Wellness Industry
The beginning of the Employee Wellness industry can be traced back to 1864. The Pennsylvania Mine Safety Act was introduced to help prevent mine workers from Black Lung disease. A few years later, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts introduced the factory inspection program. In 1891, the United States federal government mandated minimum ventilation requirements in mines across the country and prohibited mine operators from hiring children under 12.
As the work shifted from physical to digital mediums, organizations graduated from managing purely physical wellness to encouraging employees’ mental wellbeing. This is critical because mental health issues are the leading cause of disability and illness. While organizations are continuing to evolve their wellness offering, the results of the HBR survey we reviewed clearly show that we have a long way to go.
Adding Meditation to Employee Wellness Programs
One of the most important things missing from a wellness toolkit is meditation. The evidence on the impact of meditation on mental wellness has been compelling over the last few years. Individuals who meditated for twenty minutes a day for three weeks also started showing changes in the brain related to reducing stress and increasing happiness. Some other key benefits offered by meditation are:
- Increased emotional intelligence
- Enhanced creativity
- Increased ability to focus
- Higher quality of sleep
The Benefits of Using Black Lotus for Meditation
The Black Lotus application is designed by Om Swami – one of the world’s foremost meditators and spiritual teachers. With more than 15,000 hours of meditation under his belt, Om Swami has demonstrated control over his body’s involuntary system under lab conditions with the sheer force of meditation. He is the bestselling author of more than fifteen books on meditation, wellness, and spirituality. His book on meditation, “A Million Thoughts,” has been hailed as the Bible of meditation by readers worldwide.
The Black Lotus application handholds your employees through the remarkable journey of self-transformation by using the RARE framework.
Reflect – Employees kick start their day with a guided meditation and breathing exercises designed with individual goals in mind. You have goal packs focused on increasing focus, being more mindful, reducing stress, building self-esteem, among others.
Act – Employees are encouraged to perform random acts of kindness to help you give something back to the world. The acts include appreciating a peer, mentoring a newbie, helping a colleague, paying for someone’s lunch, and so on. These actions help create a kinder, gentler, and humane workplace.
Reinforce – Your employees read remarkable short stories aligned with their current goal to help reinforce crucial lessons. These miro-lessons help them strengthen their resolve to transform and allows them to apply these changes at work.
Evaluate – Employees end the day with a thoughtful reflection that helps them with simple course corrections for transformative results.
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