Taking each moment as it comes . . .
MIndfulness can have a positive flow- on in the work environment, unlike the stress that used to be seen as driving performance
Most people understand that feeling you get when you are completely absorbed in the moment, without judgment or distraction. We just help people to take this type of experience and use it during their working day. Gaynor Parkin, clinical psychologist
t would be all easy to cast mindfulness in the cringy- leftover- from- the- 70s category if not for the huge weight of scientific evidence backing it.
Lauded by mega- corporates from Google to Goldman Sachs, mindfulness meditation has emerged as one of the 21st century’s most potent workplace tools, promising everything from stress release and increase mental agility to improved overall wellbeing.
Mindfulness in the New Zealand vocational context is less well established, but there is a growing awareness around how it can be used to promote greater workplace symbiosis and productivity.
Gaynor Parkin is a clinical psychologist and the managing director of Umbrella Health, which specialises in workplace wellbeing. She will be conducting a series called Using Mindfulness at Work alongside her colleague Karen Jones at Victoria University in 2017.
Parkin become engaged with mindfulness when she was living in the UK, juggling the stresses of work with the demands of raising twins.
“I was incredibly drained,” she says. “I would breastfeed my babies then get on a taxi to conduct a lecture at university.”
Mindfulness soon became an invaluable tool for the busy working mother and she has been a passionate advocate for the practice ever since.
Mindfulness, she explains, is the process of “deliberately focusing your attention on the moment you are in”.
Mindfulness in the Western context is based on Buddhist concepts around moment- by- moment awareness of what is taking place in your experience. It was developed in a therapeutic form by John Kabat- Zinn to help people suffering from chronic pain in the late 1970s.
His studies at the Stress Reduction Clinic in the US investigated the practice through a scientific lens. The results were so compellingly positive that others ( including mental health practitioners) began incorporating it into their work with sufferers of mental illness. In the past decade it has moved out of clinical practice into many areas, including work.
In her courses Parkins asks people to think of the state they are in when they are fully immersed in doing something they love.
“A man who attended one of my mindfulness courses loved fishing. I asked him what he was focused on when he was doing this and he said ‘ just the fish’.
“Most people understand that feeling you get when you are completely absorbed in the moment, without judgment or distraction. We just help people to take this type of experience and use it during their working day.”
She says there are “hundreds of thousands” of research papers backing the benefits of mindfulness. It’s been found to reduce pain, lower stress, generate greater cognitive flexibility and improve immune response in those who practice it regularly.
In the work context, Parkin says, mindfulness can have a raft of benefits.
“Many of the people I work with are in leadership roles, and are suffering from mental exhaustion,” she says.
When they engage with mindfulness on a regular basis they become less mentally and emotionally fatigued, more ability to see the bigger picture, calmer and more responsive to the demands of others.
Another benefit of mindfulness in the workplace is a reduction in rumination.
It’s easy to churn over negative workplace experiences and get caught in a cycle of negativity.
Parkin says mindfulness can create a buffer between stressful experiences and the reactions people have.
“In mindfulness people are encouraged to observe how particular experiences make them feel, without judgment.
“This can can be very useful in a stressful work environment.”
Parkin works with teams and individuals in workplaces and says regular mindfulness practice can encourage better social connections and a kinder, more understanding, working experience.
“The feedback I get from people after they put mindfulness in place in their workplaces is that the environment is calmer; people’s actions are more deliberate and less reactive,” she says.
She says by fostering a nonjudgmental experience of the present, people are able to notice what is happening in their daily experience, as opposed to being on autopilot.
“If people are able to notice things like ‘ I can feel my heart racing’ and create space around that experience, they can become less reactive.
“This can help lower cortisol levels and improve emotional regulation.”
Parkin teaches a range of mindfulness techniques including mindful moving, mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful eating and other forms using props such as seashells and candles.
She finds that each individual will have a preferred mindfulness practice, but believes even a short period of mindfulness a day can have very positive results.
There is often a level of scepticism around mindfulness, but Parkin says she encourages people to do their research around the scientific backing for the practice.
She points to an article by Dr Craig Hassed at Monash University on the effect mindfulness can have on performance.
The article, which appeared in the Neuroleadership Journal, outlines how stress has been seen as almost a positive in the corporate world — providing motivation and drive — and that people are often loathe to tackle it for fear of losing this drive.
But research indicates that when we push ourselves too hard, we can suffer from burnout, which reduces motivation and makes us less able to function.
The article says one study of people who underwent three months of mindfulness training found them to be calmer under pressure and have increased goal- orientation and greater overall wellbeing. They were better able to deal with daily pressures and more able to function at a higher level.
Parkin says leaders who buy in to mindfulness in the work context can be great facilitators for change.
“Leaders who practice mindfulness can help encourage people in their workplace to try it but it shouldn’t be a forced thing.
“Their passion and the changes that they’ve made in their own lives is often a real testament to the power of the mindfulness,” she says.
She says that some workforces start with mindfulness practice every day, and this can make a tangible difference to the work environment.
“Mindfulness can really foster calm in the workplace,” she says. “When I go back to visit workplaces who’ve taken mindfulness courses you can really sense the positive changes.”