Prolonged stress in your work-life can result in exhaustion and anxiety. Meditation can help reintroduce balance and induce a sense of calmness amongst the chaos.
Overview
If you are a working professional, you are probably well aware of what it feels like to be stressed in your job. A rude client rejects your article for the 3rd time without giving any feedback. Your computer suddenly restarts before you had the chance to save the work that took you 5 hours to complete. There’s a project submission due next Monday and your colleague calls in sick so now you’re all on your own.
Been there, done that.
As funny as it is to read about these things and find them relatable, prolonged exposure to stress in your work life can lead to a very serious psychological syndrome known as burnout. Burnout occurs when you are overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and your mind and body are no longer able to keep up with the constant demands and deadlines that your work expects you to fulfill.
Signs you are heading to a burnout
1. Decreased attention span and lack of focus
The tricky thing about burnout is that it’s not always obvious. Sometimes, its subliminal existence can confuse you into questioning your abilities. You may not be able to trace the exact reason why are no longer able to focus and pay attention to things the way you used to. Needless to say, this is bad news for any working professional.
2. Decreased productivity
Due to the above-mentioned, you may also find yourself not being able to perform at your natural best. Not only does this make it worse for you, but also for the people and businesses that are dependent on you to perform to achieve their goals and targets.
3. Decreased job satisfaction
For a lot of people, productivity and satisfaction are interrelated. For them, not being able to perform well and deliver on time can induce feelings of unworthiness and reduce job satisfaction. The problem only multiplies as they guilt themselves into thinking that they are bad at their work. But in reality, it’s just stress clouding their judgment.
4. Decreased morale
One of the worst consequences of prolonged stress in your work life is a decrease in morale. Morale is nothing but the enthusiasm, confidence, and desire to take initiates in a given environment. For professionals, especially the ones indulged in creative professions, decreased morale can harm your ability to ideate, create, stick to your schedule, and manage clients.
5. Decreased resilience
Resilience is a must-have skill for any professional. It’s the ability to bounce back or recover from adversity. As a professional, the more resilient you are, the more time and energy you will be able to contribute to your work. However, over a period of time, stress can shift your resilience into vulnerability and make it harder to recover after having been through difficulties.
Meditation as a coping mechanism
One of the most effective ways to cope with burnout and work stress is through meditation. Meditation is certainly not news to any of us. In fact, it is an ancient practice and is said to have originated around 1500 BCE as a spiritual exercise and religious practice.
Though the goals may be different today, meditation can still have some very positive effects on your mental health. But not all of us are gurus and know how to meditate. Don’t worry, we won’t ask you to sit underneath waterfalls to find inner peace. Simply downloading a meditation app for work stress will do just the trick.
Personal Recommendation
Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, practicing guided meditation is now as easy as a few finger taps. One of our personal favorite meditation apps is Black Lotus. Founded by Om Swami, an acclaimed Indian monk, Black Lotus has goal packs specialized for working professionals who find themselves stressed regularly.
These goal packs include fun mindfulness activities, breathing exercises, simple 10-minute quality meditation sessions, a daily dose of wisdom, and an in-depth framework called R.A.R.E. (Reflect. Act. Reinforce. Evaluate).
We highly recommend Black Lotus to anyone looking to achieve tangible results via meditation such as being more mindful, stress management, improving emotional well-being, controlling emotions, bettering relationships, practicing gratitude, and becoming more productive.
Benefits of meditation for professionals
1. Helps achieve mindfulness
While burnouts make you more easily distracted, meditation aims to reinstate your ability to be more mindful and present-minded. This is done by recollection, recognition, organization, and projection of one’s own thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations.
2. Decreases stress and anxiety
Benefits of meditation in the workplace is that it helps regulate our daily stress and anxiety levels. More often than not, people who practice meditation on a regular basis and keep a consistent schedule tend to be more peaceful, happier, and more able to deal with stress.
3. Stabilizes emotions
A lot of the times when we are stressed and discontent, we tend to lash out in anger at someone who didn’t deserve to be at the receiving end of our rage. Meditation helps address this issue by equipping us with the skills required to control our emotions and become more emotionally intelligent via the practice of introspection and self-mastery.
4. Increases job fulfillment
Any work environment, whether it’s an actual office or a DIY home office, that is open and inviting to the idea of self-realization and well-being always inspires and helps create a positive atmosphere. This, as a by-product, leads to greater levels of job fulfillment, feelings of worthiness, increased morale, and general happiness.
5. Helps avoid procrastination
We have all procrastinated at some point in our life. It’s the delaying and postponing of action due to fear of failure. Basically, avoiding working towards the success of an objective by spending time on irrelevant activities to protect oneself from fear. Meditation helps solve this by quieting the inner critic and negative racing thoughts.
