Meditation For Managers – Could It Help With Stress?

Much like a website has to maintained using SEO services, mental health also must be maintained. Wellness and meditation for managers may not seem like obvious management considerations, but they actually go hand in hand. This article explains why.

Management training teaches us a lot of things, but meditation is highly unlikely to have come up. However, it really doesn’t take much of an explanation to see the link. In fact, it comes down to these easy sums:

 Management = Stress

 Management + Meditation = Stress Management

Sure, it is a little simplified, but the concept is simple.  Management is complicated, so why add on any more complication with detailed explanations and analytics?  It is a very stressful role and meditation can easily reduce stress and even provide coping mechanisms for stressful situations whilst they happen.

Why Many Managers Are Stressheads

Managers are responsible for a lot. They have to communicate with senior executives, motivate their team, handle issues with customers and colleagues – basically everyone. They also have to deal with the fallout when things go wrong.

A little bit of stress isn’t going to hurt anybody, and it should be expected within a management role. However, it needs to be limited otherwise the effects can be detrimental.

The Effects Of Stress

Stress can do many bad things, including but not limited to:

• Sleep issues
• Eating issues
• Increased reliance on addictions (smoking, drinking, eating)
• Physical issues (fatigue, shaking, headaches)
• Emotional issues (lack of patience, feeling emotionally unstable, feeling angry all the time)

These issues may be something a person can deal with short term, but long term they will take their toll on home life and work life. In short – stress can destroy a person’s life.

How Meditation Can Help

Meditation for managers is an excellent solution for those who are stressed, because it can be done at home in private where no judgement can be made. The process can also be used to help with mindfulness and coping mechanisms for stressful situations.

Basic Meditation Guidance

1. Find somewhere at home where you will not be disturbed, that is comfortable and quiet
2. Close your eyes, relax your body and sit in a comfortable position (or lie if that feels better)
3. Control your breath focusing on breathing in for four, then out for four – slowly
4. Focus on how your body feels, how the breathing feels, concentrating only on how you feel in that exact moment
5. As you inhale, think about the stress, imagine it rolling into a big ball in your stomach. As you breath out, imagine letting it all go.
6. Continue this process for around ten minutes building the time up as you repeat the process regularly.

We also recommend guided meditation apps (there are many!). You may also want to meditate in the morning as a way to focus and bring positivity to your mind during the day. Meditation for managers can also extend to stressful situations where you learn how to tune into a relaxed state of mind. However, these are all further down the line. For now, even if stress has not affected you as yet, we recommend learning meditation as a fantastic way to keep stress under control. It is a powerful skill and works well to balance what is an extremely demanding job.