The Benefits of Meditation

The Benefits of Meditation for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs If you have ever attempted to start your own business, you are probably very familiar with the stress of working long hours, taking on increased responsibilities, and trying to problem solve your way through unexpected challenges. You might find yourself struggling to find time to eat three square meals a day or sleep more than a few hours each night, let alone add something as indulgent as meditation.

Some Stress is Natural And Unavoidable.

• Over time, however, increased and prolonged exposure to stress will erode away the health of both body and mind.
• It can lead to an array of symptoms including frequent headaches, upset stomach, and digestive issues, chest pain, difficulty sleeping, and hypertension.
• Additionally, stress worsens the symptoms of other diseases and can even slow recovery times from injury and illness.

Meditation, however, has so multiple benefits specifically for business owners and entrepreneurs.

• After engaging in meditation, the mind and body are relaxed, relieving the symptoms of stress.
• Meditation increases the ability of the mind to engage in creative tasks, tasks that require intense focus, and tasks that require problem-solving.

Additionally, meditation helps your mind cope with the barrage of information that can pass through it in a given workday.

• It may seem difficult to justify taking time out of your busy schedule to “do nothing”.
• But when you view meditation as a regular part of a healthy lifestyle and you consider the numerous mental and physical benefits; it’s easy to understand why so many business owners choose to engage in it.
• Taking a little time to rest and recharge through meditation will increase the productivity and efficiency of your entire day.
• Furthermore, after engaging in meditation, even the daily tasks of pouring a cup of tea, driving, or filing papers can become a form of meditative concentration as your mind is already geared up and ready to apply this newfound mindfulness to everyday situations.

Corporate Meditation and Employee Morale Some businesses hire corporate meditation services to encourage their employees to engage in meditation together.

• Corporate meditation has a three-fold benefit for a company: it improves employee health and wellness, it increases employee productivity, and it increases employee morale.
• Meditation results in reduced costs of employee absenteeism because employees can enjoy the health benefits of meditation including reduction of stress, injury, and illness.

Employees will be less likely to call in sick because their bodies will be healthier.

• Additionally, employees who feel that their job is actually helping them to be more productive and healthier will report overall higher levels of job satisfaction, resulting in less employee turnover.

Meditation also increases productivity,

• Especially for people whose professions require them to use their creative thinking skills or to concentrate for extended periods of time such as engineers, designers, architects, programmers, and artists.
• Additionally, meditation can help employees learn new tasks because it improves memory retention and general learning ability.
• When the mind is relaxed and free from distractions, it can work much more productively at the task at hand.

Meditation can help increase employee morale for several reasons.

• The first is that employees can develop a sense of emotional closeness by engaging in a shared experience together.
• Second, the process of relaxation can help lower emotional defenses which will, in turn, make the participants more likely to work well together on team projects and support each other under the pressures of deadlines, demands, and changes.
• Finally, employee morale can be increased by the introduction of a corporate meditation program as employees may feel that their employers care for their general well-being.
• Employees will find it easier to take pride in a company that takes pride in them.

Research studies are beginning to prove the benefits of corporate meditation programs.

• According to Project-Meditation.org, a Detroit-based chemical plant implemented a corporate meditation program.
• After just three years, they reported an 85% reduction in absenteeism, a 120% increase in overall productivity, a 70% reduction in injuries, and a whopping 520% increase in company profits.

The Benefits of Meditation for Personal Well-Being

• Meditation, especially when used as a regular part of a healthy lifestyle, has multiple benefits.
• When you review the list below, it will be easy to see why so many people are incorporating it into their professional and personal lives to help them achieve a greater sense of success.
• How many other activities can provide so many physical and mental benefits?

Physical Benefits

• Decreased heart rate, blood pressure, and cholesterol
• Improvements in symptoms of insomnia
• Reduction of symptoms of PMS
• Reduced thickness of artery walls, reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke by 8 – 15%1

• Improvement of chronic pain symptoms

• Reduction of the distressing symptoms of asthma, allergies, depression, cancer, fatigue, and heart disease2
• Decreased muscle tension
• Improvements in levels of energy
• Increased immunity to fight off disease

• Reduction of free radicals, resulting in less tissue damage

• Higher skin resiliency
• Slowing of the aging process
• Decreased experiences of headaches and migraines
• Improvements in fertility as meditation helps regulate bodily hormones
• 1. www.project-meditation.org
• 2 www.mayoclinic.com/health/meditation/HQ01070
• 3 www.ineedmotivation.com/blog/2008/05/100-benefits-of-meditation

Mental Benefits

• Decreased anxiety and nervousness
• Increased feelings of independence and confidence
• Causes the brain to age more slowly by increasing grey matter in the brain
• Increased creativity
• Increased ability to problem-solve
• Increased ability to concentrate

• Greater sense of self-awareness

• Reduction of negative thoughts
• Increased serotonin, resulting in improvements in mood and behavior
• Improved ability to learn new tasks
• Increased productivity
• Increased emotional stability
• Increased sense of intuition
• Increased ability to resist impulsive urges

• Increased job satisfaction

• Fewer distressing symptoms of mental illness
• Decreased feelings of aggression and road rage
• Improvements in listening skills
• Increased tolerance
• Increased ability to empathize with others and demonstrate compassion
• Increased sense of wisdom
• Ability to live in the present moment
• Increased ability to forgive others  www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/11/051110215950
• Increased sense of self-actualization or wholeness