Let’s face it, however positive and upbeat your office environment is, your employees will still suffer from stress from time to time. These stresses can come from a myriad of sources, including: overwork, pressure of deadlines, and lack of proper breaks.
For example, your sales team may be close to their end of quarter and is committed to delivering the best results possible. While this is a worthy goal, the team members run the risk of pushing themselves too far and leaving themselves drained of energy and filled with tension.
It’s at times like these that all your employees can be negatively affected.
It’s not new that stress can lower productivity or even work quality
One of the symptoms of stress, is that it can lead to lower productivity. This means that if many (or all) of your employees begin to show signs of stress, then you can be sure that your company’s overall productivity will take a hit.
If you’ve become aware that your employees are suffering from stress, then it’s time to take some action to reduce or eliminate this burden.One great way to do this, is to introduce your employees to the positive benefits of meditation. Research shows that people who meditate regularly are likely to experience the following benefits:
- An enhanced ability to focus.
- An improvement in memory.
- Less fatigue.
- An increase in perception.
- A reduction in stress.[1]
These are just a small selection of the benefits that meditation can offer, and it makes perfect sense that meditation is a great tool for boosting employees’ performance. (And in turn, a boosting of the overall performance of your company.)
Imagine for a moment, that your employees took a 5-10 minutes daily break from their work to practice meditation. Not only would they and your company see an uptick in productivity, but your employees would also naturally enhance their self-discipline. They would also find it easier to maintain a positive mindset.[2]
What Exactly Is the “Stop, Breathe & Think” App?
Hopefully, I’ve given you enough reasons to ignite your interest in making regular meditation part of your office environment. You may now be thinking: “What’s next? How can I introduce meditation to my employees?”
Well, here at Lifehack, we’ve come across a great app call Stop, Breathe & Think. We believe the app is the ideal way to kick-start regular meditation sessions in an office environment.
While the app is available as an Android or iOS download, these are primarily for personal users. When it comes to office meditation, then Stop, Breathe & Think is available as a handy Slack plug-in.
Once activated on your Slack account, Stop, Breathe & Think will allow individuals or groups to schedule mindfulness activities. These activities include:
- Short breaks to facilitate recuperation of mind and body.
- Breathing exercises to condition thoughts, emotions and reactions.
- Personalized meditations to help bring overall peace and harmony.
How the App Will Help Your Employees Become More Productive
With the huge weight of research showing the benefits of meditation, the Slack plug-in is the perfect way to help your employees to get started with this positive habit.
Let’s take a look now at some of the great features that the app offers.
App users can learn the basics of meditation – and try different types.
By choosing how they are feeling at the time, the app guides users to the most suitable meditation.
Meditations are timed so that users can fully relax, knowing that the app will alert them once their scheduled meditation time is complete.
The app also enables users to see how their emotional state has fared over the course of a week, month or beyond.
Fun, and easy-to-follow pictorial steps encourage users to complete regular meditations.
A Healthy Office Environment Can Lead to a Healthy Company Performance
The daily stresses of work can often lead to a build-up of anxiety and tension in employees. This can then have a knock on effect on your company’s performance.
Fortunately, the opposite – a healthy, upbeat working environment, can boost employee momentum and productivity. And this naturally leads to overall performance gains for your company.
With the help of Stop, Breathe & Think, your company won’t need to allocate a big budget (and find extra time) to organize leisure events and other stress relieving activities. Instead, the app will effortlessly help your employees be calmer, happier and more motivated.
So, why not give it a try?