Mindfulness – being fully and non-judgmentally present in the moment – isn’t just for loosey-goosey hippies. Wildly successful people like Salesforce chairman and CEO Marc Benioff and media mogul Oprah Winfrey — and many, many others — swear by it. There are numerous benefits to practicing mindfulness, including reducing stress, lowering blood pressure, and some say, improving brain function as you age. And in times rife with social and economic unrest – and a seemingly unending global pandemic — who doesn’t want to reduce stress, lower blood pressure and protect their brain?
At work – even when that means work from home — perhaps one of the best benefits of incorporating mindfulness into your day is a deeper awareness of how you react to what’s happening around you. Even if you have an office door to close, there are always distractions – your kids, your dog, your dishes — competing priorities and any number of situations that can give rise to strong emotions.
Intouchers are fortunate to have mindfulness resources at their fingertips. When the realities of COVID-19 were setting in, and our spare rooms (or bedrooms or living rooms) became our offices, Intouch leaders moved swiftly to create a Coronavirus hub on our internal network. It includes information on everything from health and hygiene best practices, to tips for staying productive while working at home, to balancing business and family time, to staying connected to one another while working apart, and more.
But what if you don’t have those resources at hand? How do you learn to practice mindfulness and make time to do it every day? There’s an app or a website (or several) for that. Here are our top five:
- Headspace – This app bills itself as “meditation for the modern day” and offers hundreds of sessions, many guided by a former Buddhist monk.
- My Life: Stop, Breathe & Think – there’s an app for your phone, several meditation “skills” for Amazon Echo and Dot, and even a tool add the app to Slack so you can invite coworkers to meditate with you.
- Calm – Don’t even have 5 minutes to incorporate mindfulness? Try Calm, which offers mini-sessions of as little as three minutes!
- 10% Happier – This is the meditation app for skeptics. Created by ABC anchor Dan Harris, who once had an anxiety attack on live television, this app covers all the usual things like stress, anxiety and sleep with a no-nonsense tone and a healthy dose of humor. The makers of 10% Happier also offer video courses and nearly 200 podcasts on meditation.
- Mindful – Everything from nurturing relationships to guided meditations on managing panic and anxiety resulting from COVID-19.
Want to unplug and learn more offline? Check out these books:
- Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, by ABC anchor Dan Harris
- Creating Mindful Leaders, by Joe Burton, founder and CEO of Whil
Want to work for a company that cares about your mental health in times of crisis? Take a look at our jobs page. Even though most of our work is currently done virtually, we’re hiring in several cities!