6 Reasons To Offer Meditation in the Workplace

Most employers are consistently looking for ways to create a happy workplace and boost employee engagement without completely maxing out their HR budget. Unfortunately, many fringe benefits cost businesses an arm and a leg to offer.

Luckily, meditation as a workplace benefit offers countless advantages—one of which is its low cost. Along with covering the details on the affordable cost, we’ll also go through all of the top reasons why workplaces should offer meditation to their employees.

Here are the top six reasons why you should be providing in-office meditation to your team:

It doesn’t cost much

For employers, the top advantage of meditation in the workplace is that it’s extremely affordable. Accessing free online guided meditations is extremely straightforward, so all you’ll need to provide is a quiet space for employees. Schedule off a conference room for weekly meditation practice, set up a speaker for a guided practice, and you’re ready to start offering your employees this fringe benefit.

You can also research bringing in a local professional whose focus in providing meditation and other wellness practices in the workplace. If a pilot program of putting on your own meditation classes performs well with your team, look into what it might cost to bring in a third-party to bring things to the next level.

It’s accessible and inclusive

Yoga in the workplace typically only appeals to the most able-bodied and experienced yogis on the team. Meanwhile, meditation offers many of the benefits associated with yoga without the difficult poses that discourage people from trying it out. Meditation is a workplace activity that every member of your team can take advantage of.

It controls anxiety and stress

The responsibility that comes with any office role can often lead to stress, anxiety, or both. Offering meditation in the workplace will help your employees manage stress. Plus, meditation can help curtail momentary anxiety, so employees who have access to meditation can nail presentations and proposals without blinking an eye. You can easily access meditation for stored fear and stress online to provide to your team.

It enhances self-awareness

Even more, meditation enhances self-awareness. It’s easy to get caught up in yourself while working long, solitary hours at a computer, or in a stock room, or any other isolating workplace setting. Interacting with others in between long stretches of working can lead to difficult social dynamics. Meditation helps assuage these difficulties by reducing activity in the “me” part of the brain and making employees more empathetic to the people around them.

It lengthens attention spans and improves memory

Employees who meditate will have longer attention spans and improved memory. Remembering deadlines, focusing on projects, and making deadlines will be more manageable for employees when they have access to meditation practice in their workplace.

Set up a meditation practice and watch as employee performance, particularly around tasks that require greater focus and creativity, gradually improves.

It fortifies the immune system

Finally, meditation is particularly useful for being an employee because it reportedly fortifies the immune system. Working in an office means inevitably being surrounded by people who are already sick or on their way to being sick. Having a strong immune system will help employees shield themselves from workplace sickness and keep them from having to take unexpected sick days. Ultimately, meditation in the workplace will mean that employees can take their days off for vacation more often rather than for convalescing.

Offering meditation in the workplace: The takeaways

Meditation, as expert Ilchi Lee puts is, is at its core an act of befriending yourself. The more your employees are able to do just that, the happier they will be in and outside of your workplace. Offering workplace meditation in your employee assistance program will help your employees focus, destress, better interact with each other, and stay healthy. But, ultimately, it will help them better befriend themselves, and this happiness will overflow beyond the office and into every part of their lives.

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