In today’s climate stress can take a toll on even those who normally are able to let things roll off their back. The key to dealing with a stressful situation is to develop a cellular memory of how to fall back into stillness and calm when dealing with situations that would otherwise cause you stress or burnout. No matter what size of wave one encounters you can recover quickly and proceed with more clarity and focus. Through a corporate meditation practice, you will develop the ability to very quickly and easily shift out of a reactive mode into a calm and comfortable ease.
Research has shown that a meditation and mindfulness practice can affect the amount of activity in the amygdala, the walnut-sized area in the centre of the brain responsible for regulating emotions. When the amygdala is relaxed, the parasympathetic nervous system engages to counteract the anxiety response. The heart rate lowers, breathing deepens and slows, and the body stops releasing cortisol and adrenaline into the bloodstream; these stress hormones provide us with quick energy in times of danger but have damaging effects on the body in the long term if they’re too prevalent. Mindfulness meditation actually thickens the bilateral, prefrontal right-insular region of the brain, the area responsible for optimism and a sense of well-being, spaciousness, and possibility. This area is also associated with creativity and an increased sense of curiosity, as well as the ability to be reflective and observe how your mind works.
Corporate Meditation & Mindfulness training has been used as a tool in psychotherapy, and The ZEN Room has been successfully introducing it to the field of business. Meditation practice has a positive impact on concentration, memory, creativity, emotional intelligence, and motivation. There is increasing evidence from the field of neuroscience suggesting that meditation practice can enhance employees’ job performance via its influence on the autonomic nervous and endocrine systems. Confirming that a meditation practice is an effective intervention strategy to improve job performance in the business world.
Obviously, learning to communicate mindfully means we communicate more effectively, we’re better listeners, we’re better communicators in general, so that has implications for leadership as well.
