Creating Mindfulness Programs at Work
You can’t think strategically when you’re in fight-or-flight mode. It’s just the way our brains work.
When you spend your workday putting out fires, your nervous-system (specifically, your amygdala and “lizard brain”) won’t allow you to access the creative, strategic, free-spirited parts of your brain.
When you try to envision where you your company might be in 5 or 10 years, your brain might not allow you to see past the crises of right now.
When your workday is “putting out fires,” your brain might not allow you to envision past current crises.
FAQs: Integrating Mindfulness at Work
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a crazily broad term that encompasses ancient and scientific tools to calm us down bring our brains back to the present moment.
What are mindfulness tools?
Most people think of mindfulness as breathwork, yoga or meditation, but even a walk could be a mindfulness tool. It calms you down and allows you to see the present moment more clearly.
How does mindfulness impact emotional intelligence at work?
Emotional intelligence is one of the most powerful skills of good leaders, because it teaches you how to understand your own emotions, how to consider the emotions of others, and how to control your own reactions despite what you’re feeling. (AKA, not fly off the handle when something enrages you).
Mindfulness allows us to create the gap between impulse and reaction, often called “self-regulation.”
Why is mindfulness essential for business & strategic planning?
To envision what your brand could look like in 10 or 20 years, your brain needs to needs a duo of imagination and logistics. You’re imagining the future, and planning how to get there.
But in times of stress, your imaginative & logical functions of your brain are cut-off, because your amygdala takes over (it’s of the oldest parts of the brain, also called the “emotional” brain). You cannot think strategically when you’re in fight-or-flight mode.
How do I integrate mindfulness programs at work?
If you have an HR department, start with them. Otherwise, talk with your boss. If you’re the boss, contact us. Every business is unique, and the sessions may look slightly different.
To create a success mindfulness program, you need to teach your team how to cultivate awareness of their own stress level, how to figure out what they need to deal with it, and how to apply the mindfulness tools to get back to the present moment and feeling like themselves.
Grow, without losing your s#!t.
1. Think: You talk, we listen, and together we consider a session plan that your employees will enjoy.
2. Create: Whether it’s one big session or multiple small ones, we’ll draft the group or private sessions.
3. Do: With our mindfulness training, we’ll teach your team how to stress-less and think bigger.
