You won’t see mindfulness showing up as a trending topic on twitter. You probably aren’t practicing mindfulness at work with your colleagues. You may not have heard your kid talk about mindfulness before tests.
But you will.
Because I specialize in mindfulness, I follow research on it that goes beyond the day-to-day news. When I dig deeper, I can see things that may point to changes in society overall. These may even challenge our beliefs, thoughts, and ideals.
Mindfulness is such a topic. Mindfulness is becoming a movement that will impact all of us.
Mindfulness in Business and Education
Recently, these news articles caught my attention:
Mindfulness Cuts Stress, Boosts Productivity
From ASTD (American Society for Training and Development), the world’s largest professional association dedicated to the training and development field, this article promotes the use of mindfulness in business:
During the past three decades, researchers have uncovered how the practice of mindfulness can reduce the impact of modern stressors and increase our ability to be productive, creative, happy, and healthy by training our minds to pay attention to the present. ASTD
Mindfulness in Education Conference – Dublin City University
Researchers from 9 countries have gathered in DCU on July 4th and 5th to consider the contribution and place of mindfulness in education.
Key note speakers Dr Shanida Nataraja (UK), Professor Rupert Sheldrake (UK), and Dr Marian de Souza (Australia) have presented papers on neuroscience, morphogenetic fields and empathy in relationship to mindfulness and educational settings. Almost 40 delegates working in the Arts, Health, Humanities, Social Sciences and Bio-medical and Education disciplines also presented papers exploring relationships between mindfulness, spirituality and education.
Effectiveness of the Mindfulness in Schools Programme
From the British Journal of Psychiatry, this article presents results of research on a Mindfulness in Schools program. The results show
children who participated reported fewer depressive symptoms post-treatment and at follow-up and lower stress and greater well-being at follow-up. The degree to which students in the intervention group practised the mindfulness skills was associated with better well-being and less stress at 3-month follow-up. BJPsych
The Third Metric: Redefining Success Beyond Money and Power
Image by World Economic Forum via Flickr
This video of Ariana Huffington’s address Burnout Is A Disease – Here’s How We Fix It explains the shift we need to make in ALL aspects of society by refocusing on our well-being. A central focus of this movement is stress-reduction and tapping into our own wisdom, and mindfulness is presented as a key strategy (20 minutes into the video). She talks about CEO’s being trained in mindfulness. See here for their entire section on Mindfulness Research.
Is Mindfulness in Business and Education a Trend or Passing Fad?
These articles and video clearly point towards a mindfulness movement that’s even bigger than a trend. If you simply look at the many examples of how mindfulness is already being incorporated into business and education, you can see that this is much more than a trend. And also, consider the scientific research being release to show the benefits both in employee productivity and student test scores, not to mention well-being and compassion toward others.
Mindfulness is here to stay. I’m excited that it’s moving mainstream. I think the impact on business and education will be hugely significant, and I can’t wait to see it!
How about you? What do you think? Have you already seen mindfulness moving into the mainstream?
