Yoga Slowly Becoming A Familiar Sight In The Workplace
The buzzword these days in the business world is multi-tasking
. Dealing with a client on the phone, answering a seemingly endless stream of email and creating a spreadsheet are considered much-needed skills in the office of today. It's a juggling act that may increase productivity, but can also increase stress and strain.
Wouldn't it be great to throw yoga into that multi-tasking mix?
Many of today's top corporations are, indeed, adding yoga to the list of options for employees. As computers become more and more an essential part of the modern office, along with the prevalence of iPhones and Blackberries that permit you to continued to work anytime and anywhere, employees are feeling even greater pressure to be "on call". But company officials are noticing that a stressed employee soon becomes a less productive employee. Enter yoga in the workplace.
As workers are asked to take on more jobs and spend even more time behind a desk, the issue of how to help them avoid stress has become an important one for top executives. Thus yoga, many companies have discovered, is an effective way to help employees cope with the stress of the workplace.
In recent years, more and more corporations have begun scheduling yoga sessions in the workplace throughout the day, to accommodate those with different schedules. Whether it's in a company gymnasium or that conference room down the hall, yoga classes have been cropping up in companies of all sizes.
The growth of yoga in the workplace, at least in the United States, began about 25 years ago when rising health care costs led companies to introduce programs aimed at increasing wellness stop smoking programs, exercise programs and, of course, yoga. But since that time, companies have found out that the stress-reducing benefits of yoga are far outweighing the benefits of lower health care costs.
According to the director of one trend analysis company, corporations began to understand that addressing an employee's mental health is just as important as addressing their physical health. Elsewhere, a University of Massachusetts medical center report concluded that yoga, along with mediation sessions, actually reduced the amount of stress in workers and greatly improved their performance. And an Ohio State University study found that 20 minutes of instructor-led workplace yoga and meditation, along with at least one group session a week for six weeks, can lower stress by more than 12 percent and improve the quality of sleep in sluggish office workers.
The office environment makes it a prime location for a yoga session, many workplace and yoga experts contend. Workers often sit in uncomfortably chairs for hours on end, staring at a computer screen while performing repetitive tasks. For many, lunch is a visit to the fast food restaurant down the street, last night's leftovers or a quick trip to the vending machine. This uncomfortable setting, combined with the pressure to meet deadline, take on new assignments that need to be done immediately, responding to hundreds of email messages and coping with the other mundane office tasks can make their stress levels rise dramatically.
To address this problem, several companies came up with the idea of bringing yoga into the office. For some corporations, it meant converting a space in their existing gym, while smaller companies managed to make their conference rooms and lunch areas serve a dual purpose, simply by moving tables and chairs to one side. It proved to be an entirely new way of life for many yoga instructors, who not only had to attempt meditation exercises with the whirr of a Coke machine in the background, but were also dealing with employees at different levels, from beginner to experienced, or who weren't exactly dressed in traditional yoga clothing (think ties or work overalls).
The benefits of adding yoga to the workplace became readily apparent and soon other companies began to adapt to the growing trend. And today, many of the top corporations in the nation bring in yoga instructors and conduct classes in areas specifically designed for the purpose. For instance, Apple and Google have regularly scheduled yoga classes at their home offices at various times of the day, and even after work. And at their corporate headquarters in New York, HBO has not only addressed the demand for yoga classes at their offices, but been forced to add additional classes to meet the demand.
It may be impossible to get workers to scale back from the belief that multi-tasking at work is a must, and indeed many companies may be reluctant to get them to do so. But in trying to address the needs of workers suffering from stress, corporations may want to put yoga in the workplace at the top of their schedule.
Yoga Slowly Becoming A Familiar Sight In The Workplace
By: Linda Adams
Even Children Can Receive The Benefits Of Yoga With A Little Improvisation, Yoga Can Be Done Anywhere More Men Finally Turning On To Benefits Of Yoga Which Penis Enlarger Pills Really Work The Eight Fold Path Of Meditation - Patanjali'S Ashtanga Yoga Yoga Has Benefits For The Inside Of You, Too Yoga Has A Long History In America Gain More Insight Into Yoga By Understanding The Terms National Yoga Month Promotes Awareness Of Yoga's Mental And Physical Benefits Benefits of Free Online Yoga Classes What is Laughter Yoga by:Dr. Madan Kataria Yoga Strategies To Help Cram For Exams by:Marilyn Reid Is Yoga Right for You? by:James Pendergraft Choosing A Style Of Yoga That Is Right For You