4 Simple Ways to Practice Mindfulness at Work

Mindfulness is a meditation technique centered around cultivating awareness of the present moment and placing your full attention on a breathing exercise or some other focal point. A mindfulness meditation practice has benefits that contemporary neuroscience has confirmed. Research shows it can lead to stress reduction and can have a positive impact on mental health and wellness. Once you learn how to practice mindfulness, you might find yourself in a consistently better headspace at home, work, or anywhere else.

Workplace stress can lead to all sorts of adverse outcomes for your overall well-being, so mitigating your workday anxieties with mindful exercises might go a lot further than just increasing your productivity. Adopting a meditation program can lead to lower stress levels, a growth mindset, and greater job satisfaction. The principles of mindfulness—living in the present moment, recognizing the ephemeral nature of things, increasing emotional intelligence, and developing an open mind—could help you feel more at ease performing work tasks and potentially more capable in handling any stressful situations that come up in your personal life and professional life.

Mindfulness training can do far more than just help you handle work-related stress. Here are six potential benefits of establishing a personal mindfulness program:

1. 1. Abundant calmness: You can draw on your meditation practice for a greater sense of calm—for example, if you find yourself nervous before speaking in front of colleagues in a conference room. You might be able to view every nerve-wracking situation like an opportunity to practice the same deep breaths you take while meditating. Additionally, once you can view these worrisome situations as impermanent and fleeting, you may feel more at ease approaching them head-on.
2. 2. Greater presence: As you ground yourself more through mindfulness meditation, you might have a greater sense of presence in the here and now. This could mean that when faced with the opportunity to engage in multitasking, you’re better equipped to bring your full awareness to a single task. When you’re on your lunch break, you can enjoy your food without other worries or stray thoughts crowding into your headspace. You might find you’re living far less in the past or future and far more in the here and now.
3. 3. Holistic healthiness: Regular meditation practice can come with numerous health benefits. It can lower your blood pressure and heart rate, reduce anxiety levels, and mitigate depression. Like physical exercise, learning to mindfully cultivate an inner sense of calm and stillness is a health care tool that can come free of charge and will be accessible to most people almost anywhere.
4. 4. Increased focus: A primary goal in a meditation session is to recognize when your mind wanders and then bring it back to the moment or object of focus. This practice can have implications far beyond the times you’re sitting in active meditation. As you cultivate these mindful moments, you might become far more able to recognize when you’re on autopilot. Focusing your attention is one of the most useful new skills you can learn through meditation.
5. 5. More security: Developing a meditation program can increase your sense of self-awareness and, thus, a greater degree of personal security. You might become more aware of your strengths and weaknesses, insecurities, and egotistical tendencies as you practice simply sitting while shifting away from daydreaming to focus on your breath. As you become more adept at recognizing your thoughts as permeable and transient, you might achieve a deeper sense of security.
6. 6. Wiser decisions: When you take a break from your day to meditate, you increase your ability to self-reflect calmly and make better decisions. You can discern how to best provide mindful leadership for your team, assess whether you should stay in your current work environment or seek out other employment, or ascertain how to best deal with negative emotions. Meditation can help enable your decision-making process to proceed more calmly and reflectively than maybe it has before.

Here are just a few mindfulness exercises that can help you adapt the principles of mindfulness to your workday:

1. 1. Meditate in short bursts. There are no rules as to how long you should meditate—a one-minute meditation session is as valid as a one-hour journey into mindful awareness. Meditating in short bursts can help you realize how easy it is to bring mindfulness into every minute of your workday rather than just allocating a specific amount of time to sit quietly for a sustained period.
2. 2. Recharge at lunch. Using your lunch break to meditate is a terrific way to both relax and recharge for the rest of your workday. Your lunch break gives you an opportunity to meditate for a longer period and see a greater return on some of the benefits of the practice as a result. Try sitting down for 20 minutes at lunch and focusing on each inhalation and exhalation of your breath. There are also a host of meditation apps or podcasts you can use to help you try out a longer, guided mindfulness practice.
3. 3. Try a walking meditation. Rather than focusing on your breath, consider taking a stroll around the office or outside and focusing on the sensation of walking—your feet hitting the floor, your arms swaying, your knees bending. Walking meditation is an ancient alternative to meditation that focuses on the breath. It also can give your brain and body a break that can help you feel ready for work when you return to your desk.
4. 4. Practice gratitude. Mindfulness doesn’t have to focus on something as ethereal as the breath or each step you take—you can also take a set duration of time to focus on something or someone for which you’re grateful. This sort of meditation can help situate your work more meaningfully as you come to realize how intertwined each moment of your workday is with each thought you have about the people and things that make your life worth living.

Find something comfortable to sit or lie on, grab a MasterClass Annual Membership, and dial into the present moment with Jon Kabat-Zinn, the father of the Western mindfulness movement. From formal meditation exercises to examinations of the science behind mindfulness, Jon will prepare you for the most important practice of them all: life itself.