If you still have a job these days, chances are that you have more work to do and in less time than a couple of years ago. In other words, you feel more stressed than ever. How do you fight this trend? BusinessWeek writes that "companies are battling employee stress with meditation."
Here is an example.
Dave Jakubowski, vice-president of business development for Internet service provider United Online Inc. logs 18-hour days to help his company hit its quarterly sales targets. How to cope? "I'm in business," he says, "and I need results." So he recently turned to a mat and 60 minutes of silence. "It's amazing," he says of his new meditation practice. "I'm able to sort through work challenges in this state of calm much faster than trying to fight through it. And I make fewer mistakes."
And he's not alone.
Increasingly, the overstretched and overburdened have a new answer to work lives of gunning harder for what seems like less and less: Don't just do something -- sit there. Companies increasingly are falling for the allure of meditation, too, offering free, on-site classes.
There are no hard numbers on how many companies have added meditation benefits, but the anecdotal evidence is mounting. And it's no surprise that more employers are seeking a new corporate balm. The National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health finds that stress-related ailments cost companies about $200 billion a year in increased absenteeism, tardiness, and the loss of talented workers. Between 70% to 90% of employee hospital visits are linked to stress.
And now the good news: meditation programs are cheap.
"Everybody is dealing with limited dollars," says Viacom International Inc.'s manager of work/life and training, Lisa Grossman. "It's important to keep things going when times aren't so good." So employees can breathe easy: This is one perk that isn't likely to get axed.
Source: Mara Der Hovanesian, BusinessWeek, July 28, 2003
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