They say, “Do what you love and you will never work another day in your life”. Yes, loving your job definitely has its merits, although in reality most of us miss on the passion wagon. Instead, we find ourselves dropped at wrong stations, lost our bearings, and floundering to strike the work-life balance. Most of us work to make the ends meet, to be able to pay our bills, save our future and scoot in things that make us happy, which by the way is rarely the job.
Instead, our work life is often the source of worry, anxiety, and stress. So much so that it not only affects our performance at work, it also hampers our personal lives and health. Now can we all afford to leave our job and make a change, some maybe but majorly, no. Then what can I possibly do to help myself? The answer lies in practicing meditation at work. What happens at work? We receive various stimuli to which our brain responds, using the fight or flight mechanism. Boss yelling, Co-worker dumping their tasks on you, pending work, target or delivery pressures, basically a never-ending cycle of challenging stimuli’s. How we react, or act makes all the difference to what will be the outcome of the situation. But what can be expected out of overworked, tired and obstreperous brains?
Meditation is the art of looking inwards, channeling your energy to the present while keeping your calm about it. It’s all about relaxing the mind and body, allowing it to be quiet and away from distractions and optimizing your performance in life. Many pieces of research show that practicing meditation reduces stress and anxiety and is beneficial to health by improving blood pressure and positively affecting the heart. Hence practicing it at work makes sense, this enables us to look at things from a different perspective and not get bogged down with these daily incidents.
How to do it commonly poses a greater challenge? A lot of thought goes into it like we need to find the right place, what time can I do it, how will I keep my mind focused, how much time to devote to it and so on. All of which are essentially unnecessary, which only makes starting meditation harder. All you really need to do is, stop procrastinating and begin.
- Any place even your workstations will do as long as you won’t be disturbed
- Start with small sessions of 10-15 minutes a day, whenever you can find the time
- Focus on your breathing, just sit relax, and breathe. You can count your breathing or listen to some mantra or chant it. Just concentrate on it, it is perfectly fine if your mind wanders off, in fact, I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t. So, don’t worry if you start thinking about anything else, just continue to keep bringing back your mind to what you are focusing
- Be regular and make it a habit. Soon it will become a part of your consciousness
And that’s all you need to do to begin meditating and reaping its many benefits of reduced stress, better adapt to handle situations, find contentment with your work and happier life.
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes. Including you!” – Anne Lamott