Studies show that individuals who practice meditation can clear distracting and stressful thoughts (like worry) from their mind more quickly than individuals who don’t meditate.
That sort of ability comes in handy in high-stress situations.
The U.S. military is actually experimenting with mindfulness meditation training with its new recruits. The hope is that meditation’s stress-reducing benefits will help soldiers stay out of Condition Black – (go to Breathing drop-down and click on Tactical Breathing) while in the heat of combat, as well as help them recover more quickly after the encounter.
There’s not much to meditation.
Just sit in a quiet place and focus on your breath going in your nose and out your mouth.
Whenever a distracting thought pops up, don’t get flustered.
Just name the thought, let it go, and focus back on your breath.
If you’re like me, you’ll find that when you first start meditating, you get easily distracted by your thoughts.
Don’t get discouraged; with time your mind will quiet down, and your ability to dismiss unwanted thoughts will improve.
There is no wrong way to meditate. We may feel we are crap at it and keep finding we are thinking of something else, but simply recognise it and refocus. When you slip again just repeat the process. Even if every 10 seconds you are away inside your thoughts accept it and keep going.
Start off with one 10-minute session daily, and slowly increase your sessions to 20 minutes.
If you have time, you may consider doing a 20-minute meditation session in the morning and another 20-minute session at night.
New Wharton Study: 7 Minutes a Day of Meditation Is Enough to Stop People From Behaving Like Jerks
Kinder, more helpful employees are only a few minutes of mindfulness meditation training away.
You’d have to have been living under a rock for the last few years not to have heard about the many benefits of mediation. According to a host of boosters, a mindfulness practice will boost your focus, lower stress, and even make you smarter.
But according to a new Wharton study just a little meditation has one more, impressive benefit that’s desperately needed in today’s world: it can also transform jerks into nice, helpful colleagues.
That might sound like a magic trick, but it’s entirely possible, according to an in-depth series of studies led by Wharton management professor Lindsey Cameron. Bosses, Cameron promises in a recent interview with Knowledge@Wharton, can create kinder, gentler workplaces by investing just seven to eight minutes a day in meditation.
The best jerk-busting tool out there
Just like everyone has heard about meditation these days, everyone has also heard that it’s incredibly trendy at big companies. Everyone from Google to McKinsey offers mindfulness training to employees. But these firms have deep pockets and their training programs usually involves intensive study over a period of weeks or months. That’s well beyond the reach of many smaller businesses and independent professionals.
Could a smaller dose of meditation training be equally effective, Cameron and her collaborators wanted to know. To test out this idea they went to large insurance and IT companies and offered a quick intro to meditation that lasted just seven to 10 minutes a day for five days.
The results? “We did find that mindfulness made people more helpful at work. They were more generous in the amount of time and the amount of money they would give to their co-workers,” Cameron reports.
In short, even a little meditation seems to transform jerks into cooperative colleagues. Subsequent studies in the lab suggested that meditation does this by nudging people to be more empathetic and improving their ability to see the world from other people’s perspectives. This was true using various types of meditation training.
The takeaway for bosses couldn’t be clearer, according to Cameron: “Mindfulness works, and that you don’t have to invest in an intensive eight-week intervention to be able to get the benefits.”
Meditation training: it’s easier than you think
Cameron’s team isn’t the first to come to this conclusion. Another study a few years ago also showed that just three 25-minute training sessions, was enough for participants to start seeing the benefits of mediation, for instance. What makes Cameron’s work unique is that her team whittled this down to even fewer minutes, and that the work focused on meditation’s effects on interpersonal relationships rather than stress.
In a world as awash in blowhards and bullies as ours the ability to tame jerks might be the most impressive of all meditations benefits.
And what if you’re an individual rather than a leader pondering implementing a meditation program for your team? Cameron says these results still apply. You don’t need an office-wide initiative to get started with mindfulness, “There are so many apps out there — Insight Timer, Headspace — that you can use to set aside time to do your mindfulness practice,” she notes.
Or, follow the advice of this meditation teacher and find stealth ways to slip mindfulness into your everyday routine. This new Wharton research suggests you won’t just be less stressed and more focused for your efforts, you might actually end up a nicer person.
Jessica Stillman
3 Ways to Work Meditation Into Your Busy Day
Has all the interest in mindfulness got you intrigued? Here are a few ways to dip a toe in the water and see if meditation is for you.
No doubt you’ve noticed that mindfulness and meditation have moved out of the monastery and into corporate America.
The topic is so hot that Wisdom 2.0, a conference, started in 2009, dedicated to exploring how to be more mindful about our technology use, now has a waiting list that runs into the hundreds. There are meditation apps galore, and organizations from Google to the Marine Corps have embraced the idea of promoting mindfulness. Some longtime meditators and Buddhists are even complaining that this new frenzy is corrupting the real meaning of mindfulness.
With all the interest, maybe you’ve considered seeing what all the fuss is about, but embracing a wisdom tradition thousands of years old is pretty intimidating.
How can the average entrepreneur with a jam-packed schedule get started? PsyBlog recently rounded up quick and easy ways to fit a little meditation into your day. Some are less appropriate for business owners (the candle meditation, for example, isn’t recommended for those sitting at a desk stacked with invoices), but here are a few that might work for you:
Walking Meditation
If you already go for a walk now and again to clear your head, then you have all the time and opportunity you need to give meditation a whirl. A 10- to 15-minute solitary spin in the park is the perfect opportunity to try walking meditation. PsyBlog explains: “As when cultivating all forms of mindfulness, it’s about focusing the attention. At first, people often concentrate on the sensation of their feet touching the ground. Then you could just as easily focus on your breath or move the attention around your body, part by part. The key, though, is to develop a sort of relaxed attention. When your mind wanders away, bring it back gently, without judging yourself.”
Eating Meditation
No excuses available for this one. Everyone eats, so everyone has the opportunity to inject a little mindfulness into mealtime. “When you take the first bite of any meal, just take a moment to really pay attention to the taste. Look at the food carefully, feel the textures in your mouth, smell it and notice how your body reacts to it. You don’t need to keep this up all the way through the meal, but use it every now and then to focus your attention,” PsyBlog instructs.
The Email Swap-out
For many of us, our first impulse when we need to take a break is to open up email or social media. Next time you’re feeling the need to refresh your concentration, why not try a few minutes of mindfulness instead? It’s supersimple, according to the post: “Turn away from the computer/tablet/smartphone and sit for a moment noticing the sensations in your mind and body. How do you feel? What can you hear? Try to be as present in that moment. If your mind wanders off to tasks that you have to complete or starts working over things that happened yesterday, let these go. Gently bring your mind’s focus back to the present.”
Entrepreneurs’ Secret Anti-Stress Weapon
A new study shows even small amounts of meditation relieve stress and boost health. No wonder many business bigwigs turn to it.
Science and religion are often at odds, but at least occasionally there is convergence. Buddhist monks and devoted yogis have long contended that meditation reduces stress. A recent study agrees, even if the practice is stripped of any particular spiritual belief.
The randomized, controlled study was carried about by a team including a Duke university psychologist and an Aetna executive among others and was recently published in Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. The research assigned 239 employees to either weekly yoga practice, mindfulness meditation, or a control group. “After 12 weeks, participants in both programs had significantly lower stress, as well as reduced difficulties in sleeping, whereas the control participants did not,” reports The British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog.
The meditation and yoga also had measurable biological effects. “Those participants who had been through the intervention had better outcomes, in terms of heart rhythm coherence, a measure of autonomic balance linked to better functioning,” according to BPS. To achieve these results, the participants spent just one hour a week with their new stress reduction practice.
The fact that mediation, stripped of any particular religious belief, is a solid stress management technique for busy entrepreneurs comes as no surprise to psychologist Karuna Cayton, the author of a new book entitled The Misleading Mind: How We Create Our Own Problems and How Buddhist Psychology Can Help Us Solve Them. According to Cayton the scientific evidence for the stress-busting effects of mindfulness meditation are “abundant and convincing. A 2003 study by Dr. Richard Davidson at UCLA found that mindfulness practice reduces stress up to 30 percent just by practicing 20 minutes. Other studies have shown similar, if not greater, results in reducing stress,” he told Inc.com.
Perhaps that’s why business leaders from Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone, to Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, and Larry Brilliant, head of Google’s philanthropic efforts, are all publicly known as dedicated meditators. And the practice isn’t just good for stress relief, according to Cayton. It also benefits leadership.
“Empathy is greatly increased through mindfulness practice. As we know from the studies in emotional intelligence, empathy is one of the key leadership competencies in positive leadership. Research has demonstrated that the mood of the leader has an overwhelming effect on the mood of her organization. The recent studies in neuroscience only help to validate this correlation,” said Cayton.
If you’re intrigued, Cayton says there are plenty of resources available for business leaders looking to dip a first toe into meditative practice, though he recommends guidance from a trained instructor over CDs or online training. And don’t worry if you’re the type who wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a robe or burning incense. “No Buddhist training is needed,” says Cayton. “These techniques are secular, non-religious, and scientifically based.”
Mentell 