stress – Page 7 – Grow Mindfulness

Mindfulness and Yoga for Addiction Release

In a discussion of the interaction between mind, body and spirit, Surbhi Khanna & Jeffrey Greeson acknowledge the complementarity of yoga and meditation – both require paying attention to experiences and related emotions as they happen.

They suggest that the “loss-addiction cycle” arises from a number of sources:

Addictions are born as a result of ‘mindless’ states involving escapist attitudes, automatic thinking, emotional reactivity and social isolation.

Breaking the addiction cycle – using yoga and meditation together

The addicted person turns to a form of gratification to fill the void left by sadness and loss. The void maybe filled by an addiction to smoking, drinking alcohol or using any other substance or activity in a repeated, mindless way. The problem, of course, is that the addiction, whatever form it takes, fails to overcome the sense of loss, isolation or disconnection. The addicted person then increases the use of the substance or activity and seeks to intensify the momentary pleasure they experience. These further cement the “loss-addiction cycle”.

The authors assert that practices such as yoga and meditation improve attention and concentration and enhance the ability to self-observe and regulate emotions. They maintain that optimal treatment and prevention of addiction and recovery from it, can be achieved by using yoga and meditation in concert. They point out that further evidence-based research needs to be undertaken taking into account different kinds of addiction and differences in gender, demography and orientation (physical, mental or spiritual).

Khanna and Greeson, however, contend that the growing empirical research and conceptual development of the underpinnings of meditation and yoga, support the view that the combination of these two modalities can break the cycle of stress, negative thoughts and emotions and the resultant addictive behaviour.

Yoga and meditation are complementary and mutually reinforcing. As you use these modalities together they can help you grow in mindfulness and reduce or avoid the mindless pursuit of addictions. When used in concert, yoga and meditation can improve self-awareness and self-management.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of SofieZborilova on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Mindfulness for University Students

In an earlier post, I discussed mindfulness for school children and explained the ground-breaking work of Goldie Hawn in providing training in mindful awareness and brain science to hundreds of thousands of teachers and children.

In this post, I want to focus on mindfulness for university students and highlight the mindfulness resources that are now increasingly available in universities throughout Australia.

The challenges confronting university students

University students face many challenges that can upset their balance and equanimity and contribute to distress. Overseas students studying in Australia, for example, may have the challenge of mastering a new language, developing new friends and overcoming the sense of isolation and loneliness. The process of integration and “finding their place” is compounded by cultural differences associated with norms that impact behavioural expectations generally, as well as in tutorials and lectures.

University students might experience performance stress resulting from assessment requirements such as assignments, projects and exams – often occurring across more than one subject simultaneously. Sometimes, this performance stress and related anxiety is self-imposed through the desire to achieve a certain minimum GPA to gain entry to an Honours or Master’s course or program. Other times, the performance stress is generated by the expectations of students’ parents, employer or relatives. Peers, too, can add to the pressure when they are quick to point out any shortfall in assessment results or make unfavourable comparisons.

University students may experience exclusion from the “in-group” on the grounds of race, gender, sexual preference, dress standards or another discriminating basis. Students at live-in university colleges may find it hard to fit into the prevailing college culture and norms. They might even be excluded on the grounds of failing to form an intimate relationship within the college community. The recent Human Rights Commission report into sexual harassment and sexual assaults in universities in Australia gave a challenging insight into the prevalence of, and devastating impact of, sexual abuse experienced by many university students.

Relationship breakups are a common experience for university students through the pressure of study and assignment commitments, differing expectations and values and the unusual circumstances of university life. These relationship break-ups can lead to emotional turmoil and distress. Relationship problems and other stressors can be exacerbated by financial difficulties.

The onset of assessment deadlines can result in panic attacks, nervousness, anxiety and add stressors to relationships that are already stressful. The level of stress experienced by university students in Australis was highlighted by the report of a recent research project. The research, conducted jointly by Headspace and the National Union of Students, surveyed 2,600 Australian tertiary education students. The report disclosed a very alarming level of anxiety among the TAFE and university students surveyed – “35 per cent experiencing self-harm or suicidal thoughts in the past 12 months”.

Mindfulness Resources in Universities

Universities have started to realise the impact of multiple stressors on students’ ability to concentrate and perform academically and to sustain commitment to their courses (drop-out rates have been increasing).

Most universities now, especially through their counselling services, have established a suite of mindfulness resources for their students. They promote these on the grounds that they will increase concentration, clarity and focus; reduce stress; enhance physical and mental health; improve quality of life and relationships; and help to develop positive attitudes and happiness.

RMIT, for example, provides a series of six conversations incorporating introductions, audios and exercise worksheets. The conversations are based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) which involves a core message – “accept what is out of your personal control, and commit to action that improves and enriches your life”. The RMIT ACT Conversations cover the following topics:

Language creates conflict
Action & experience versus thought and emotion
Acceptance, willingness and inclusion
Mindfulness and being present
Your values and direction
Committed action

In line with many mindfulness trainers and practitoners, RMIT stresses the critical role of the exercises and mindfulness practice. A local resource that reinforces RMIT’s ACT approach is the very readable, humorously illustrated and practice-oriented workbook, The Happiness Trap Pocketbook, produced by Dr. Russ Harris and Bev Aisbett.

James Cook University provides a Relaxation, Meditation and Mindfulness PDF with links to Smiling Mind Mindfulness Meditation, free meditation resources and classes, 6 mindfulness exercises to try, quick relaxation techniques and exercises.

Links to other free mindfulness resources designed for university students include the following:

Additionally, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) through its Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) has the following free resources:

There are numerous resources for university students to grow in mindfulness and improve the quality of their university life, enhance their close relationships and achieve the level of academic performance they are capable of.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of youzuowei1230 on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Tai Chi and the Mind-Body Connection

In a previous post when discussing mindfulness and neuroplasticity, I mentioned that Tai Chi actually develops the mind physically by increasing the size of the insula in the brain.

Tai Chi is one of the mind-body techniques that form part of Traditional Chinese Medicine and is based on Chinese philosophy incorporating Taoism and Confucianism. Tai Chi involves a combination of slow movements, body postures and mindful breathing. In Chinese philosophy terms, it facilitates the flow of Qi, “life energy”.

Tai Chi has been shown to improve muscle strength, balance and flexibility and, when used in conjunction with Western Medicine, helps patients suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, Arthritis and low bone density as well as helping people to recover from the effects of a stroke.

The real benefits of Tai Chi flow from its capacity to simultaneously develop the mind and body of the practitioner and thus enhance their mind-body connection. Alzheimer’s disease is a clear example of the mind-body connection because as the mind deteriorates so does the body. Tai Chi has been shown to combat Alzheimer’s.

The power of Tai Chi to develop the mind derives from the state of “relaxed concentration” achieved by focusing on the coordination of mind and body in a series of slow, balanced and rhythmic movements, while focusing on a single thought. The focused attention develops mindfulness, improves memory and strengthens concentration. Dr. Shin Lin, in a talk at the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine, provided research results to show that Tai Chi produces new neurons during regular practice which suppress stress and build memory.

Dr. Lin indicated that Tai Chi, besides producing stress release, also improves immunity and eases chronic pain and fatigue. Professor Michael R. Irwin, Medical Doctor and Director of the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA, has demonstrated in his research that Tai Chi “promotes improvements in health functioning, viral specific immunity, and inflammation”. His area of research and practice is focused on the mind-body connection – “Psychoneuroimmunology” involves the “study of the interaction between the psychological processes and the nervous and immunity systems of the human body”.

I have found from personal experience that Taoist Tai Chi helps both my mind (concentration, focus and creativity) and my body (energy, balance and fitness). I use the evidence of the mind-body benefits of Tai Chi to motivate my daily practice.

Karl Romain, in discussing how Tai Chi trains the brain, suggests that if you cannot find time for meditation and Tai Chi, practise your Tai Chi because it has a meditation element, as well as provides benefits for your mind-body connection. I think the two practices, meditation and Tai Chi, are highly complementary and my personal goal is to achieve daily mindfulness practices that include both traditions.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and/or Tai Chi, we develop improved health and wellness, develop our minds and deepen our mind-body connection.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of johnhain on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Payoff from Self-Awareness

Daniel Goleman, in a recent LinkedIn article, discussed How Self-Awareness Pays Off. In the article, he reiterated the fact that self-awareness underpins the other skills of emotional intelligence, such as self-management.

Self-awareness in this context relates to recognising and understanding your own emotions and what triggers them. The payoff for a developed sense of self-awareness is multi-faceted. Here are a number of payoffs identified by Goleman and others:

Space to develop creative options

Goleman discussed the situation of a woman working in a high-powered job that was causing her stress. The result of her lack of self-awareness was that she became increasingly unable to cope. Unfortunately, the effects of stress are cumulative. Work stress, too, leads to poor relations with colleagues and the effects can invade family life. The net result was that the woman decided to seek out a less-stressful but lower-paid job, an action which also had the effect of limiting her opportunities for promotion.

If she had worked at developing self-awareness, she would have been able to break the stress cycle, understood what was creating stress for her and been in a position to have sufficient space in her working life to develop some creative solutions such as delegating some work, exploring ways to reduce her reactions to the things that triggered stress for her or negotiating a change in the allocation of duties or responsibilities.

More effective communication of your needs

People who develop their self-awareness are better able to communicate their emotions and their needs to others. They can thus facilitate an accurate exchange of information with others which, in turn, enables better decision making. Accurate exchange of information, both in terms of content and feelings, is an essential precondition for quality decision making. If you are unaware of your own emotions and what is contributing to your disappointment, anger or frustration, you are unable to communicate in a way that enables others to assist you to address your problems.

More responsive to the needs of others

Judith Glasser contends, following her research with executives, that we often have “conversational blind spots“. These arise as a result of our tendency in conversation to assume that others think and feel what we think and feel – we project onto others our own thinking and emotional responses. This usually arises because we fail to engage in active listening – we end up talking over the other person or interrupting their sentences. We have a strong emotional inducement to prove we are right at the expense of really understanding the other person’s perspective or feelings. These “conversation blind spots” result in parallel conversations and damage, rather than build, relationships.

Glasser suggests that we should get in touch with our own feelings and needs in these conversations and understand what is happening for us – in other words, we need to develop self-awareness to prevent damage to our relationships, both at work and at home. She recommends that once you become aware of your tendency to dominate conversations, you can learn to slow down the process, develop your curiosity about the other person and explore what is the significance, meaning and implication of an issue for them. In this way, you can be more responsive to the needs of others and enrich your relationships.

Goleman suggests that you can build self-awareness by daily meditation practice and/ or by the occasional “personal check-in” (to see how you are faring emotionally). He argues that as we grow in mindfulness, we increase our capacity to see ourselves more clearly and to understand the impact of our words and behaviours on others.

The payoff from self-awareness is a greater capacity to develop creative solutions to our own needs and feelings, improved ability to communicate these needs and feelings to others and an enhanced capacity to be responsive to the needs of others.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of Bess-Hamiti on Pixabay

Mindfulness for Leadership

In his presentation for the Mindfulness & Meditation Summit, Daniel Goleman discussed Altered Traits: The Benefits of Mindfulness for Leadership and Emotional Intelligence. In this discussion, he drew on research that he described with his co-author Richard Davidson in their new book, Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body.

Daniel is the author of a number of other books including, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence and Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.

In talking about the impact of mindfulness on leadership capability, Daniel drew on a select number of research articles used within his last co-authored book. These were articles that met the tests of rigorous research that he and Richard Davidson employed in their book.

He distinguished the results achieved for different levels of meditators – the beginners, the long-term meditators and the “Olympian” meditators (e.g. Buddhist monks and members of contemplative orders such as the Carmelite nuns and priests).

He contends from the associated research that the benefits of meditation deepen and broaden the longer and more frequently you engage in meditation practice.

However, beginner meditators can gain some benefits that positively impact leadership capability, whether directly or indirectly.

Some of these findings for beginner meditators are:

1. Ability to focus better

This outcome is the primary subject of his book, Focus. Because meditation involves focusing your mind on a particular object, person or activity, it naturally builds the capacity to maintain attention and restore attention when a distracting thought occurs. The resultant mental fitness is akin to physical fitness attained through exercise or gym work – instead of physical power or stamina, the meditator gains the power of concentration.

2. Better utilisation of working memory

Paying attention through meditation practice enhances short-term memory which enables better retention and utilisation of information, gained through perception, for the purpose of decision-making and guiding behaviour.

3. Handle stress better

Neuroscience shows that meditators are better able to handle stress because our automatic response via the amygdala is not triggered so readily and recovery is quicker – two elements that together determine resilience.

4.Growth in kindness and compassion

A well-established finding is that those who practice loving kindness/compassion meditation actually tune into others’ needs better and are more likely to help. These benefits are relatively immediate and kindness and compassion are seen increasingly as traits that define successful leaders.

Long-term meditators achieve greater and more sustainable benefits such as increased concentration ability, enhanced capacity to pick up on emotional cues because they are more able to be present to the other person, greater calming effects (felt emotionally and experienced biologically) and a higher-level capacity that is described as meta-awareness (the ability to observe our own thoughts and feelings).

As we grow in mindfulness through regular and sustained practice of different forms of meditation, we are able to build our leadership skills and capability which we can employ in any arena of our lives – be it work, home or community.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of MemoryCatcher on Pixabay

Being Mindful

When we first hear the idea of “being mindful”, we tend to associate the concept with thinking. If we are asked to do something mindfully, we assume that this means tackling a task with a clear plan of how we will do it, having a contingency plan if things go wrong and being conscious of the consequences, intended or unintended, of our actions.

In contrast, “being mindful” in the context of mindfulness training involves being fully present and paying full attention to some aspect of our inner or outer landscape.

It is the opposite of being “lost in thought” – absorbed in the endless procession of ideas that pass through our mind, minute by minute. Being mindful actually means shutting down our thoughts, being fully present and paying attention to our breathing, walking, eating, perceptions or some aspect of our body.

In somatic meditation, for example, we are focusing on our body through practices such as the whole body scan. This requires us to still our mind and focus our attention progressively on different parts of our body and release tension in our muscles as we undertake the scan.

Mindful breathing requires us to pay attention to our breathing while letting distracting thoughts pass us by. We need discipline to maintain our focus and avoid entertaining our passing thoughts. They can be viewed as bubbles of water floating to the surface and disintegrating.

Being mindful builds our ability to focus, to be present in the moment. As we grow in mindfulness through mindful practices, we gain the benefit of clarity and calm in situations that would normally cause us stress. Mindfulness also contributes to our health and well-being, builds our creative capacity and enables us to experience a pervaisve sense of happiness.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: Courtesy of johnhain on Pixabay

Why Kids Need Mindfulness

In her interview with Tami Simon, Goldie Hawn explained in depth why children need mindfulness training and what led her to develop and conduct MindUP™.

At one level, it concerned Goldie that American children rarely smiled – a stark contrast to children in Third World countries who smiled a lot despite experiencing incredible deprivations.

Goldie was also concerned about school-age children needing psychological help to deal with anxiety and stress.

School-age children have their own direct sources of anxiety – such as performance expectations of parents and teachers, peer acceptance and sibling rivalry. Performance expectations can relate to academic performance, achievement in a sporting arena or meeting career expectations.

Self-generated anxiety in children can be compounded by parental anxiety and stress – generated by economic downturn and associated job losses, the threat of terrorism and career stresses.

Anxiety in parents is contagious and can contaminate the emotional life of children. They, in turn, carry their accumulated anxiety and stress to school and bring home anxieties from school experiences, including bullying.

The recent suicide death of 14 year old, Dolly Everett, because of online bullying, highlights the pressures that kids are under from peers. Dolly was a bright, happy and caring child who was subjected to cruel, cyber bullying.

This form of devastating peer presure carried out via mobile phones and social media, is one of the many stresses that school children today have to deal with.

What Goldie has done through her MindUP™ program is expose children to brain science and enable them to understand their own emotions and reactions. She has also given them a common language to express themselves via metaphors, e.g the amygdala as a “dog barking”.

Another key feature of the program is “mind breaks” – a simple process focused on breathing that enables the children to learn how to calm themselves. As they grow in mindfulness through mindful practice, they are able to attain calmness and clarity and better manage their lives at home and school.

As Goldie points out, she is giving school children the tools to be positive and caring leaders of the future:

They are going to be able to manage their emotional construct, their reactivity, to become better listeners, ideate better, problem solve better, and have some dignity, some level of humanity that they have learned through their early education.

Children need mindfulness to equip them to better manage the stresses of day-to-day living and to have the resilience to handle bullying behaviour.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: Courtesy of GoranH on Pixabay

Why Happiness Grows with Mindful Practice

Chade-Meng Tan gave a presentation on mindfulness and happiness at an international conference on technology. Meng (as he is called affectionately and respectfully by friends, colleagues and associates) painted a picture, through a series of metaphors, of progression in happiness as we grow in mindfulness.

Attention training and emotional control

At the earliest stage of attention training, through mindful breathing, we gain a level of control over our emotions – instead of our emotions controlling us, we stay in control. Meng likened this to moving from being an unskilled rider at the beck of a wild horse (emotions), to a skilled rider who has the horse (emotions) under control. This sense of control is a basis for happiness because, among other things, we will experience fewer regrets. We will also be less “up and down” as a result of a shift in our emotions.

Self-awareness and self-mastery

As mindfulness training progresses through mindful practice, we gain mastery in two related areas, self-awareness and self-management. Firstly, self-awareness enables us to understand the stressors in our life – what stresses us – and also to realise the nature and strength of our responses. We gain insight into our contribution – through prior experience, negative thinking, assumptions and perceptual distortion- to the level of stress we experience. Our perception of stress changes and we experience less stress as a result. This is the basis for more frequent experience of happiness.

Self-awareness is the beginning of self-mastery, because we cannot achieve self-management without this self-knowledge. Self-mastery enables us to remain calm and think clearly in situations where others “are stressed out”. This calmness and clarity under stress signals leadership capability and may result in greater career success. If nothing else it enables us to have the freedom of choice – the capacity to determine our response to stressors in the gap between stimulus and response.

Meng likens this stage to the effects of physical training – we gain mental and emotional fitness as we grow in mindfulness. As with physical training, we find we are stronger, more resilient and happier as we develop our mindful practice. The positive effects of mindfulness training are deeper and more sustainable than those flowing from physical training.

As Meng points out, based on the results of neuroscience research,:

What you think, what you do, and more importantly, what you pay attention to, changes the function and structure of your brain.

We develop more grey matter (our neo-cortex, the command centre of our brain thickens) and the amygdala reduces (our potential emotional saboteur – the basis of our fight/ flight responses). So our brain physically changes with mindful practice and locks in the positive effects, including the growth in happiness, that enable us to function better in all aspects of our life – work, career, relationships and leisure.

Discernment of emotions

Meng maintains, from more than a decade of evidence-based results, that our discernment of emotions increases dramatically as we grow in mindfulness. He argues that we achieve high resolution in our perception of our emotional processes. So not only are we better able to detect even small changes in our emotional process, but we can do so in real time – as they are happening. This gives us useful and timely information so that we can view our emotional response objectively.

Thus we are able to make a perceptual shift so that we no longer think and say, “I am angry”, but rather “I am experiencing anger”. This enables us to move from a perception that there is nothing we can do about this negative emotion, to one where we recognise that our emotions are something we can control.

Meng uses the analogy of the sky and clouds – your mind is the sky and emotions are the clouds. This leads to the life-changing acknowledgement that “I am not my thoughts; I am not my emotions and my emotions are not me”. This statement drew spontaneous applause from the audience because it was so liberating.

Mindful practice then enables us to view emotions as a feeling/expression in our body, just like physical pain. We are able then to treat them as separate from ourselves and thus controllable – which increases our experience of happiness .

Kindness habits

As we grow in mindfulness, we are better able to demonstrate kindness to others. Kindness has been shown to improve mental health and well-being, even if the kindness is expressed as a thought, rather than action. Meng explains that even asking people to think kind thoughts about two other people – wishing happiness for them – for at least ten seconds a day can have life-changing effects. As we reported earlier, we become what we focus on – thinking kind thoughts about others on a daily basis can make us a kind person.

Kindness reinforces all the benefits of mindful practice and enhances and enriches our state of happiness.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of RobinHiggins on Pixabay

Mental Illness in the Workplace

There are two compounding trends that, in concert, are beginning to increase the issues associated with mental illness in the workplace. They are the incidence of narcissistic managers and the growth in the number of people in the workforce who have a mental illness. I will deal with each of these trends in turn and link the issues to the offsetting influence of mindfulness.

The Incidence of Narcissistic Managers

Many significant publications such as Psychology Today, Harvard Business Review, Inc.com, Health.com and Time.com, have recently discussed the incidence of narcissistic bosses and ways to self-manage in the workplace to protect yourself from psychological damage caused by these bosses. It is suggested that most people will encounter at least one narcissistic manager in their working life – I have experienced three that I can recall.

What are the characteristics of narcissistic managers that contribute to mental illness in the workplace? Well the characteristics of these managers have been summarised by the underlying philosophy of “me, myself, I” – that is I “first and foremost”.

Characteristics of Narcissistic Managers

There are many characteristics of narcissistic managers described in the articles and in research. Some of the more common traits described (and confirmed by my own experience) are:

Self-aggrandisement – believe they are more capable, competent or efficient than they actually are (believe they create high performance teams when the reverse is true)
Obsession with self advancement – their careers come before anything or anybody else
Over-concern with visibility and being seen in a good light
Blame others when mistakes occur (to deflect blame from themselves) – always looking for a “scapegoat”
Will lie to save their projected image
Take credit for other’s work if it advances their own positive visibility
Insensitive to the needs of others, especially their own staff
Will constantly change priorities depending on what advantages them, without regard for the impact of such constant change on others
Will have an in-group, but any member can become part of the out-group at anytime if they cause embarrassment
Create unrealistic time pressures for staff to try to show that their area is highly productive
Will publically criticise their own managers in front of the manager’s own staff
Will micromanage to try to ensure that mistakes do not occur and that what they want to occur will actually happen.

The Impact of Narcissistic Managers on Mental Health

The reality is that these managers do not achieve control. In fact, their situation becomes progressively out of control and they experience high levels of stress as a result, on top of their self-induced stress caused by self-obsession. They may gain compliance through fear, but lose commitment because people physically or psychologically withdraw to protect themselves – no longer caring about the work, unwilling to offer suggestions for improvement, avoiding contact with the manager or engaging in covert sabotage (to get back at the narcissistic manager). They also lose confidence and begin to question their own competence.

The narcissistic manager, then, not only creates an environment conducive to the development of mental illness in staff, they also potentially aggravate the condition of staff who already have a mental illness before joining the narcissistic manager’s workgroup. The compounding issue is that the narcissistic manager lacks the insight to see how they contribute to the conditions creating, or aggravating, mental illness; nor are they overly concerned about the individuals negatively impacted by the highly stressful workplaces they create.

People in the Workplace with a Mental Illness

Beyond Blue, an organisation dedicated to improving the mental health of all Australians, estimates that there are 3 million people in Australia suffering from anxiety or depression and eight people die each day from suicide. This suggests that anxiety and depression are an issue in the workplace. Beyond Blue funds an extensive research program covering anxiety and suicide for all categories, including young people, women, men, aged people and the LGBT community.

The Black Dog Institute also supports the development of mental health in the community. They draw extensively on research to support their role. From this research, they are able to maintain that:

Mental illness is very common. One in five (20%) Australians age 16-65 experience a mental illness in any year. The most common mental illnesses are depressive, anxiety and substance use disorders.

What is particularly concerning is that they report that suicide “is the leading cause of death for Australians aged 25-44 and second leading cause of death for young people aged 15-24”.

This means that suicide is potentially prevalent among people who are in early-career or mid-career as well as those entering or about to enter the workforce.

The role of Mindfulness

The narcissistic manager exhibits the characteristics that are the opposite of the mindful manager. They particularly lack self-awareness and hence self-management. They are by nature lacking in empathy and compassion and are unable to communicate with insight as they are blinded by their own emotions and selfish-obsession. Their only motivation is to advance themselves – they have no source of motivation beyond themselves and are thus unable to engage committed individuals.

As we mentioned in recent posts, emotional intelligence skills can be learned through mindfulness. The challenge is finding ways to engage narcissistic managers in mindfulness training when they have a “keep busy” mindset. Offering mindfulness training as a means of stress reduction may provide the motivation for them to be involved – because it focuses on “where they are hurting”.

Hence, mindfulness has the potential to help narcissistic managers to manage their stress levels, change their management style and assist other individuals experiencing mental illness.

Jon Kabat-Zinn has demonstrated over more than 30 years that his Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training has very substantial benefits for people suffering different levels of stress and forms of mental illness. His findings through his practice have been confirmed by neuroscience research.

As individuals in either group grow in mindfulness, they will experience the benefits, and contribute to the development of a more humane workplace.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of Maialisa on Pixabay

Creating a Workplace Culture of Well-Being Through Mindfulness

In a recent McKinsey Quarterly article, the authors challenged what they call “neuromyths” – basically, misunderstandings arising from misguided interpretations of neuroscience findings. They argued that many leadership development programs are based on these “neuromyths” and result in considerable waste of financial resources and employee time.

One of the myths that the authors challenge is the concept that the brain’s development is fixed at an early age and that little change in the brain’s structure can occur over a person’s lifetime. However, recent neuroscience has shown that rather than being fixed in structure, the brain exhibits “plasticity” throughout our lives. The research of this phenomenon has been described as follows:

Brain plasticity science is the study of a physical process. Gray matter can actually shrink or thicken; neural connections can be forged and refined or weakened and severed. Changes in the physical brain manifest as changes in our abilities.

Research into the power of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction demonstrates, for example, that there is a real physical change in brain gray matter resulting in increased capacity in areas such as learning and memory processes and emotional self-regulation.

Health insurer, Aetna, has taken this research seriously and built their employee development programs around the ability of mindfulness practices to enhance mental capacity and reduce stress. By 2015, more than twenty five percent of their 50,000 employees had participated in at least one form of mindfulness training. Aetna’s aim was to reduce stress in the workplace and the associated loss of productivity and employee well-being, while simultaneously generating high performance.

As a result of realised benefits in the workplace, Aetna has increased their commitment to mindfulness training for employees. In 2017, they created a Mindfulness Center with the explicit aim of “developing a workplace culture of well-being“. The Center provides mindfulness activities a number of times each week and is designed to host future presentations and courses conducted by experts in the area of mindfulness.

Aetna has made this very substantial investment in mindfulness training because they have seen that their managers and staff, as they grow in mindfulness, reduce their stress, increase their resilience and develop high performance.

Aetna is certainly not alone in investing in mindfulness training for managers and employees – and in realising the associated benefits. Google, for example, has trained more than 4,500 of their employees in mindfulness and emotional intelligence over the last 10 years. The derivative program developed by the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI) is providing mindfulness training to leaders in thousands of organisations in the public and private sector on an ongoing global basis.

A recent Mindful Leaders Forum in Sydney was an extension of a forum that is contributing to the global development of mindfulness in the corporate world:

In three years, 1500 executives from more than 350 companies have come together to explore a new style of leadership. It’s all about helping individuals, teams and organisations to thrive in the digital age. It’s part of a global movement that’s sweeping across the corporate world where innovative companies such as Google, LinkedIn and the Harvard Business School are using evidence-based tools to unleash creativity, productivity and purpose-driven performance.

The Sydney-based forum included presentations by Marque Lawyers, Westpac Bank, e-Bay, Australian Army and Medibank.

Organisations world-wide are investing in the development of mindful leaders who can build a workplace well-being culture that generates the dual goals of employee wellness and high performance.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: Courtesy of WolfBlur on Pixabay