How To Be Mindful At Work

Hello,

My name is Shirelle Moore Tucker and I am a corporate and community wellness educator based in the Washington,

D.

C.

Metro area.

And today I want to share my three top tips on how you can be more mindful at work.

You know,

For many of us,

We've heard of the term mindfulness and it may seem like a great idea at first,

But how do you become more mindful in the context of a busy workday?

You know,

Between emails,

Phone calls,

Meetings and presentations to deal with,

It can all be very overwhelming and mindfulness or being mindful at work can be the furthest thing from our mind.

In the middle of all that,

How can you apply the principles of mindfulness so that you can feel more alive and present as well as being productive?

When you are mindful of something,

You are observing it,

Not caught up in it and not identify with it.

That's what it means to be mindful,

Especially in a busy work environment.

So consider these mindful tips at the start of your workday.

And I implement these as well for myself.

Consider this,

Start your day with a few moments of conscious awareness,

Right?

I know you may be saying,

Well,

What is conscious awareness?

Well,

You know,

It really is mindfulness.

And above all,

It's about being aware and awake rather than operating unconsciously.

When you're consciously present at work,

You're aware of two aspects of your moment to moment experience what's going on around you and what's going on within you.

And so mindful work needs to be consciously present in what you're doing while you're doing it,

As well as managing your mental and emotional state.

So let me give you an example of that.

So for instance,

If you're writing a report,

Mindfulness requires you to give that report your full and undivided attention.

Each time your mind wanders to things like who your boss had an argument with or who's meeting for drinks after work,

You have an opportunity to bring your attention back to the task at hand.

So again,

I suggest that you pause for a few moments before you start your day.

With a few moments of conscious awareness.

So how do you do this?

Well,

You can just simply sit,

Just have a seat,

Pause and breathe.

You can do this with your eyes open or close and begin to witness your thoughts.

And a simple explanation is don't allow your thoughts to take you down a rabbit hole.

Easier said than done.

But that's why this is a practice.

So you practice noticing your thoughts.

You may be surprised at some thoughts that are repeat in your mind.

And that's what I mean by starting your day with a few moments of conscious awareness.

The second tip that I want to share has to do with mindful exercise.

Mindful exercises can be as short as you like.

Even one minute of consciously connecting with one of your senses can be classified as mindful exercise.

You don't have to even close your eyes with this and you don't have to be sitting down.

Give yourself an opportunity to be creative about finding slots in your day to practice mindfulness exercises such as a breathing exercise,

Which can be really simple.

You can do it in 30 seconds or a minute.

You can also consider a very brief meditation,

A mindful walk or a nice stretch break.

Those are always nice.

So at times of excessive pressure at work,

Practicing a short mindfulness exercise can really provide the reset that you didn't know you even needed.

The process helps to rebalance your nervous system,

Toning down the fight or flight response and engaging the wise part of your brain so that you can make reasoned decisions rather than automatically reacting to a situation.

That's how powerful these mindful exercises can be.

And once again,

It can be something as simple as just conscious breathing for 30 seconds or a minute.

And then the last tip that I want to offer,

Which can be kind of controversial,

Has to do with tasking,

Single tasking that is.

So by now you should realize that multitasking is truly a myth and it doesn't work.

And let me explain to you why.

You see,

When we multitask,

We're not really doing two things simultaneously.

No,

We're not.

What we're doing is task switching,

Which means that our brain is moving from one focus to another at a very high speed.

And this is an incredibly ineffective way of working and can rapidly lead to fatigue,

Tiredness,

An inability to focus for long periods of time and a reduction in our willpower.

Multitasking also means we stop being present because we're trying to focus on too many things at once.

And guess what?

When that happens,

We are likely to miss important details and make mistakes.

Instead,

Consider single tasking,

Which is simply taking one piece of work and work on that to the exclusion of everything else.

Don't have multiple windows open on your computer,

Which I am guilty of,

And only have the window you need to do the work you have chosen at that particular time.

Now,

We have not been conditioned to be a single task society,

So this can be a challenge.

But I guarantee you that it is definitely worth the effort to just give this a try.

Once you finish that work with this single task,

Take a short break move.

And when you return to your place of work,

Start the next item you want to work on.

When you get into this practice,

You will soon find yourself becoming more focused and more mindful about what you're doing.

So those were my three top tips for how to become more mindful at work.

And so I would like to end this session with a very short meditation.

Now,

Even if you've never meditated before,

I believe you're going to be able to engage with this meditation because it's very simple.

So wherever you are,

Begin to find a yourself in a comfortable seated position.

Relax your arms and your shoulders.

Begin to plant your feet firmly into the floor.

Begin to soften your gaze,

Close your eyes completely.

As we take a moment to reconnect with ourselves through the aid of the breath.

Inhaling deeply through your nose.

Releasing your breath through your mouth.

Inhale.

Feel yourself gently wind down a bit,

Noticing muscles that were once tense begin to soften,

Relaxing your fingers,

Your hands.

You may even notice a softening in the muscles in your face.

Take a moment to relax your legs and begin this very simple breathing exercise with me.

With the relaxed body,

We'll now begin to bring us nice calmness to the mind.

Breathing in for a count of four and exhaling for a count of four.

We'll do three rounds.

Taking your time,

Be mindful.

From your low belly,

Take a deep inhaling breath for four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Exhale four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Inhale four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Exhale four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Last round.

Inhale for four,

Three,

Two,

One.

Exhale four,

Three,

Two,

And one.

Now return to your regular breathing.

Begin to open and close your hands a bit as you begin to slowly flutter your eyes open if they were closed.

Begin to extend your arms all the way up,

A nice body stretch,

Reaching,

Extending all the way up through your fingers.

Allow that extension to flow down into your legs as you lift your hips up away from the seat and stand.

Full body stretch.

Breathe in,

Breathe out.

Wonderful.

I hope that you feel rejuvenated and you're ready to move forward with the rest of your