Promoting wellness at work

IT IS no secret that most people consider their workplace to be a major cause of stress in their lives.

The factors responsible for such a situation could range from an unhealthy relationship with co-workers, to being unable to live up to the expectations of superiors, fear of downsizing, performance pressure or mere general dissatisfaction.

This can be seen in the form of a growing sense of dispiritedness in individuals, and gradually in the overall workplace. This then calls for a need to achieve ‘occupational wellness’ through spirituality.

Occupational wellness is nothing but enhancing our ability to achieve a balance between work and personal life, addressing workplace stress rather than avoiding it, and building healthy relationships with co-workers, thereby improving the overall quality of our work and our life.

To understand how a spiritual approach to life can directly contribute towards occupational wellbeing, it is necessary to understand its meaning.

Spirituality in general means to have a deep and clear understanding of the ‘self’, and finding the ‘real meaning and purpose of our life’ by developing a strong connection with someone superior.

Gaining insight into our inner selves through meditation not only helps us identify and effectively manage and control our troublesome emotions of anger, fear, ego, jealousy, etc, but also helps us understand other people’s emotions that lead them to behave in a certain way.

In other words, this practice of looking inwards helps us develop our emotional intelligence, which is as important in our personal and professional life as intellectual intelligence.

People who are emotionally intelligent exhibit a sense of calm amid chaos. They take criticism well, and use it to improve their performance, and are able to sense the emotional needs of others.

These ultimately lead to beneficial outcomes such as increased job satisfaction, improved productivity and improved relationships with co-workers.