The Benefits of Mindfulness
If you find yourself listening to co-workers complain at work, you’re not alone. Jane S., RN, often eats her lunch sitting on a curb in the parking lot next to the clinic where she works as a nurse. It isn’t sunshine she’s after. In fact, rain is a frequent occurrence in the area of the country where she lives. She’s looking for just a few minutes of peace and quiet from the chaos and complaints that echo off the walls in the employee break room where people wolf down their meal amid a chorus of gripes about work and working conditions.
A recent Harris poll found that 80 percent of workers feel stressed about one or more things in the workplace. Long commutes and low pay were at the top of the list, followed by high workloads and difficult work relationships on the job.
Feelings of persistent high stress among workers have been shown to be related to negative outcomes including personal and professional burnout, absenteeism, lower productivity and lower job satisfaction. Besides the “normal” sources of stress like employment uncertainty due to globalization and increased job flux, nurses like Jane must deal with meeting the needs of sick and dying patients and coordinating and documenting care across different health care systems. The sources of stress for workers at all levels and in all settings seems to be growing,
Is there a panacea or secret potion that can be applied in a variety of work situations? Employers can help by offering wellness programs aimed at boosting mental and physical health. One highly recommended approach is the use […]
Mental Clutter: Organizing the mind for writing
Perhaps it’s the winter season and I think I should be hibernating. Why else do I have the sense that I can’t get myself organized to write an essay? The ideas are there, piling up like laundry ready to be sorted and folded and put somewhere. They fly around in my head, meteors intent to land and make a big splash, promising to be the beginning of an interesting adventure on the page. But – the big BUT – I seem to have turned the lights off on the landing field. My brilliant gems zoom off untethered into the stratosphere. The end result: my mind is cluttered with bits and pieces, words, storylines, plot ideas, and nothing is happening on the page.
Peter Walsh, an authority on organizing the content of homes, believes that organization begins in the mind rather than in our basements, closets or garages. Walsh became famous as an organizer of clutter and cluttered minds on the TV series, “Clean Sweep.” He doesn’t focus on objects (things) when he helps people to tidy up, he goes right to the heart of the matter. He asks his clients: “What’s your vision for the life you want and the home you want?” He works room by room with people, starting with the purported “purpose” of the space. In each area he picks up objects and asks the owner if the thing moves them closer or farther away from their vision of the life they want. If it’s further away, out they go.
Let’s visit […]
