Studies prove meditating leads to higher work efficiency, reduction in stress and greater health benefits
Many successful leaders around the world including Oprah Winfrey and Ray Dalio CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund are sponsoring employees and or participating in 20 minutes of meditation a day. Why? Because Meditation produces big benefits! Today meditation is regarded as the ultimate workout leading to a higher work rate efficiency, reduction in stress and numerous health benefits.
Prof Richard Davison from Wisconsin University conducted an experiment to prove the value of meditating by taking 20 people and conducting an MRI on all of their brains. He then asked 10 candidates to participate in a 20 minute meditation for 3 months and re-did all the MRI’s on everyone thereafter. The results were astonishing. The people that had meditated showed a decrease of activity in the amygdala – the part of the brain that is sensitive to negative information and an increase in the hippocampus the part of the brain that is central to memory and learning. The 10 people who had not meditated, showed an increase in the amygdala and a decrease in the hippocampus areas of the brain – the exact opposite of those involved in meditation – scientific proof that regular meditation re-wires the brain in a positive and life affirming way.
The latest brain science has shown very specifically how meditation affects our brains. In the groundbreaking 2012 Yale stress study published in Biological Psychiatry, researchers found that stressful life events such as divorce or job loss or changes impacted the brains of even healthy individuals making them less capable of enduring subsequent stressful events by hindering emotions and self-control. Scientists have observed “across-the board marked shrinkage” in the medial prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate and the insula, the parts of the brain responsible for personality expression, emotions, decision making, self-control and goal achievement. And these parts of the brain shrunk with every additional stressful life event. In other words, the accumulation of stressful life events will make it more challenging to deal with future stress.
Why a stressed out mind can’t function
We all know about the flight or fight response. When we are stressed, our prefrontal cortex stops working to direct energy to vital parts of the body to “fight or run away” This was essential for our survival in pre-historic days. Unfortunately, our neural circuitry of fear has not evolved in the modern brain and our primitive response to threats can immobilize our thinking or executive brain.
Studying the effect of meditation at work
Meditation practice has been scientifically proven to reduce the intensity and duration of the flight or fight syndrome described above. One significant study, for instance, looked at the effect of Meditation practice on employees of both a large manufacturing plant of a Fortune 100 corporation, and a small distribution sales company. In both settings, after 3 months, regular meditators had improved significantly on measures of:
- employee effectiveness;
- job satisfaction;
- professional and personal relationships;
- physiological calmness and stability during mental task performance (measured by skin conductance levels);
- status of general health.
Regular meditators also reported decreased:
- job tension;
- insomnia and fatigue;
- cigarette and alcohol use.
Employees who practiced Meditation scored significantly higher on Leadership Practice Inventory than controls. Leadership Practice Inventory measures important elements of leadership thinking like
- vision;
- creativity;
- empowerment;
- role modelling.
- Greater work effectiveness;
- increased energy for activities at work and home;
- greater comfort taking initiative and increased calmness in stressful situations.
And a recent study with a Volvo managerial team in Sweden also suggested that the psychological changes accompanying meditation practice could enhance decision-making skills while also improving the ability to find creative solutions to complex problems.
Meditation has real health benefits
Meditation is not a reclusive activity leading to complete withdrawal from the ’marketplace of life’. Quite the opposite in fact. To anyone even slightly informed about the effects of meditation, the question posed above would be little more than rhetorical. It has been shown in rigorous scientific research that Meditation reduces physical and emotional stress, sharpens creativity and increases cognitive skills. Both human relations and decision making flourish.
Bring down your level of stress
Whatever the source of excessive stress in your life, it is simply not good for your health.
You cannot always change your outer circumstances and control what happens to you, however, you can significantly increase your inner resilience to stress and counteract its negative impact by regularly practicing a Meditation technique. Everyone can learn to meditate and gain the enormous emotional, psychological and health benefits easily and naturally.
