Managing Change - Expert Coaching and Development
  • Home
  • Our Services
    • Development >
      • Executive Coaching
      • Leadership Coaching & Development
      • Programmes >
        • Leadership Development Programmes
    • Transitions >
      • Career Coaching
      • Parental Leave Coaching >
        • Maternity Coaching
        • Paternity Coaching
      • Outplacement >
        • The Programmes
    • Assessment >
      • Psychometric Instruments
  • About Us
  • Our People
    • Credentials
    • Sarah Jaggers
    • David Bredin
    • Simon Foster
    • Christine Peck
    • Darren Perks
    • Annabel Purves
    • Lesley Trenner
    • Roberta Bantel
    • Mark Powell
  • Our Clients
    • Testimonials
  • Contact Us
  • News and Views

Mindfulness practice. Should you?

30/5/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Practicing some form of meditation, like mindfulness, is super fashionable now. It is considered by some to be as necessary to them as their daily workout. But is this yet another example of an over hyped trend or is there real benefit?

Mindfulness (and similar) meditation is a Buddhist-inspired practice that trains people to focus their mind on their experience (such as sounds, feelings, thoughts) in the current moment and to be fully present and aware. This usually involves a quiet space, breathing routines, relaxation and so on. People are often encouraged to develop a daily practice working either on their own or following guided meditations via phone apps or audio.

What is the evidence for the benefits and applications of meditation?

Practices such as mindfulness meditation have been found to provide moderate benefits in reducing pain, depression, anxiety, insomnia and stress in some studies. However many scientists remain concerned at what they consider to be the overblown hype around mindfulness given the limited studies and evidence to support it. In 2014 a group of scientists led by psychologist Nicholas Van Dam looked at these previous studies, collectively including over 3,500 participants, and found essentially no evidence for benefits related to enhancing attention, aiding sleep or controlling weight. This does not suggest that the practice is necessarily ineffective but that there is as yet little supporting evidence as to the benefits or applications.

Mindfulness in the workplace

Here’s where the effectiveness of the practice gets even more sketchy. The hype around it confidently says that mindfulness meditation will help with resilience, rational thinking, job satisfaction, clarity of thought, etc. It is hard to disassociate these claims with the increasingly lucrative market in promoting apps and books about it (a market valued in 2017 as worth $1 billion in the US alone). American behavioural scientists Kathleen D. Vohs and Andrew C. Hafenbrack recently wrote about the unintended negative consequences of mindfulness use in the workplace. Their studies suggest that the sense of calm achieved by mindfulness practice actually reduces motivation at work.   

Keep an open, but sceptical, mind

“Overall, I suspect that a large number of the health promises will not be fulfilled, mostly because therapies, phone apps and other interventions are being rushed to market without sufficiently rigorous testing and appropriate implementation,” Van Dam says. “But given what we’ve seen to date, I suspect evidence may accumulate supporting mindfulness practices for anxiety, depression and stress-related conditions.”

Many of us at Managing Change find mindfulness practice beneficial and will continue with it. We won't be recommending it for spurious purposes or overblown benefits though!

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Anxiety
    Appraisal
    Authentic Leadership
    Breaking Through
    Career Coaching
    Careers
    Coaching Psychology
    Communication
    CVs
    Diversity And Inclusion
    Emotional Intelligence
    Employee Engagement
    EQ
    Executive Coaching
    Feedback
    Feedback Culture
    Imposter Syndrome
    Job Interviews
    Job Search
    Lawyer Survey
    Leadership
    Leadership Development
    Leadership Development Programme Model
    Learning And Development
    Management Development
    Managing Change
    Maternity-coaching
    Meetings
    Motivation
    Parental Leave
    Performance
    Positive Psychology
    Psychometrics
    Redundancy
    Resilience
    Returning To Work
    Strengths
    Stress
    Transactional Analysis
    Women Leaders
    Working Mums

    Archives

    December 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    November 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013

    RSS Feed

Picture


Managing Change (Cambridge) Limited

t: 01223 655667       e: enquiries@managingchange.org.uk

Copyright © 2016 - 2019 Managing Change (Cambridge) Limited. All Rights Reserved.

GDPR Privacy Policy
  • Home
  • Our Services
    • Development >
      • Executive Coaching
      • Leadership Coaching & Development
      • Programmes >
        • Leadership Development Programmes
    • Transitions >
      • Career Coaching
      • Parental Leave Coaching >
        • Maternity Coaching
        • Paternity Coaching
      • Outplacement >
        • The Programmes
    • Assessment >
      • Psychometric Instruments
  • About Us
  • Our People
    • Credentials
    • Sarah Jaggers
    • David Bredin
    • Simon Foster
    • Christine Peck
    • Darren Perks
    • Annabel Purves
    • Lesley Trenner
    • Roberta Bantel
    • Mark Powell
  • Our Clients
    • Testimonials
  • Contact Us
  • News and Views