START MINDFULNESS
Stress, inability to maintain attention and listen to constant distractions, and even anxiety and depression. It is the syndrome of the modern worker, fragmented between often very different tasks and too many tasks to complete. The cure? According to numerous research studies, concrete help could come from Mindfulness, a technique that trains the ability to pay conscious and complete attention to the present moment. And whose effect is to improve concentration and foster productivity, creative thinking, and effective communication.
How many times in the last week have you forgotten about something important or urgent that you needed to do? Or forgetting what you were told? Or what about eating with almost no taste? How many times have you started something and then wondered, "What was I doing?" How often have you felt overburdened with work and other commitments, or found yourself chasing time for fear of not being able to complete them? And how many times has this state of mind caused you to make mistakes or work slowly? Or perhaps you reacted inappropriately to a remark made by a colleague or superior?
This is a rather typical picture for many workers, managers, entrepreneurs, women, and men alike. A picture that results not only in a more tense climate in the workplace and the family but also in lower productivity, at all levels. On a psychological and mental level, we talk about excessive stress, the inability to maintain concentration and attention, and automatic thinking. And for some years now, even in our country (with a good decade of delay compared to Anglo-Saxon countries) we are beginning to think about practical and concrete techniques and tools that can contribute to the improvement of these situations, and the key seems to be that of awareness.
To train mindfulness, many techniques: from yoga to Tai chi or Qigong, as well as different forms of meditation. And one of these, the one that seems to be having the most success lately in the West,
is Mindfulness, a technique defined by Jon Kabat-Zinn, who theorized it, as "the ability to pay attention in a particular way: intentionally, in the present moment and in a nonjudgmental way."
The program he designed is one of the most widely used, Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). Mindfulness, then, is not simply a relaxation technique, nor a classical meditative practice. But a sequence of courses for developing and training one's capacity for mindful attention in daily life.
In Silicon Valley late last year much was said about the spread of Mindfulness practice in companies such as Google or Linkedin, just to name a couple. With the goal, concrete, to work better, to produce better. Also, the benefits are very concrete and scientifically proven.
Meditative practices, in general, are effective in reducing stress-related symptoms such as anxiety and depression: Recent research from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore reviewed all the studies done to date on forms of meditation, finding 47 clinical trials with over 3,500 participants confirming the beneficial effects described. Not only that, several studies have focused on Mindfulness and have shown that with eight weeks of training, there is a significant increase in brain gray matter in areas associated with learning, memory processes, emotion regulation, and sustained attention, i.e., the ability to maintain attention and concentration on a given stimulus for an extended period of time-a fundamental faculty that is greatly jeopardized today by multitasking ways of working and thinking. In addition, through the practice of Mindfulness, there was also increased activity in the left prefrontal cortex, which was correlated with the presence of happiness and well-being, as well as evidence of a general improvement in immune system responses.
There is a genuine Mindfulness strand that focuses on the benefits and training of Mindfulness in the workplace, such as
Michael Chaskalson's book "The Mindful Workplace,"
which promises practical tools to improve listening and communication among colleagues, manage stress, and strengthen workplace relationships. In short, the apparent gap between a practice similar - but not identical - to some meditative techniques and the pursuit of productivity does not appear so great.
People who are genuinely interested in their work are those who are more focused on what they do than on the results.
Mindfulness focuses on processes rather than outcomes. And perhaps only a mindful path ensures goal achievement.
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