There are 1000 ways work can cause job stress.  Stress can wreck your day, your week, or even your career if you allow it to build up.  The corporate world waits for no one, so you need a stress buster that is both effective and quick.  Meditation is a proven way to reduce job stress, fast.

Dozens of Benefits

Meditation can positively impact your life in dozens of ways including your physical health, mental health, managing emotions, and laser sharp focus.  Many of these benefits are now recognized by leading health organizations such as the Mayo Clinic (source).  If you have ever wondered how a co-worker seems to be performing at a superhuman level and rarely gets rattled by stress, meditation may be their secret weapon.

Meditation Helps Reduce:

• Job Stress – irritability, fatigue, even body pain in response to a work related situation
• Anxiety – worrying that can persist even after the stress has ended and overwhelm your thoughts
• Feeling Distracted – racing thoughts, competing priorities, divided attention
• Muscle Tension – involuntary tensing of muscles that can cause migraines and other pain
• High Blood Pressure – a common side effect of stress that can lead to serious heart issues
• Negative Emotions – anger, frustration, and other feelings that rob you of focus and energy

Meditation Helps Create:

• Deeper Focus – ability to concentrate deeply on projects and problem solving
• Heightened Creativity – ability to identify new improvements, solutions, and strategies
• Stronger Self Confidence – sense of inner strength and security even in challenging situations
• Increased Sense of Well-being – feeling of health, happiness, and satisfaction (source)
• Additional Patience – ability to tolerate waiting and delays
• Presence in the moment – the focus of your mind and the location of your body match (not thinking about work when your trying to relax on vacation)

Easy To Get Started

Meditation is a simple process of releasing physical and mental tension. Resist the urge to overthink it.  The basic techniques below are highly effective. Begin reversing the effects of stress by consciously relaxing your muscles and controlling your breathing. Practice each technique for about 5 minutes.

Technique 1:  Guided Relaxation

Summary:  This technique involves closing your eyes, methodically looking for any tension the body is carrying, and consciously releasing it.  You work from top to bottom until the whole body is relaxed.  Deceptively simple, but extremely impactful.

1. Get comfortable in your chair and relax with hands resting comfortably in you lap or on your legs
2. Close your eyes
3. Focus on your breathing.  Allow it to slow down just a little with each breath
4. Now, focus on the top of your head.  Become aware of your scalp and release any tension you find there
5. Move your focus down around the head and face.  Allow your face, jaw and the rest of your head to relax
6. Continue relaxing the body from top to bottom.  Focus on the neck and shoulders and allow the tension to release
7. Continue down into the arms.  Relax your shoulders, down through the elbows, wrists, hands and fingers
8. Refocus at the shoulders and move the relaxation down the back to the base of your spine
9. Refocus again at the shoulders and move the relaxation down through the chest and abdomen
10. Relax down through the waist and into the legs
11. Down over the knees, into the ankles, feet and toes
12. Scan the whole body for any tension that crept back in and allow the area to relax

Why it helps:  Spending a few minutes actively releasing muscle tension prevents it from building up into a headache, sore shoulders, stiff back, or grinding teeth. It also relieves the pressure on your veins and arteries. Whatever your blood pressure is normally, it’s worse when your muscles are tense.

Additionally, this technique relaxes the mind by shifting your focus inward to your own body instead of all the chaos in the outside world.  You will find your mind doesn’t have much room for job stress and worry. 

Technique 2: Meditative Breathing

Summary:  This technique involves focusing on the act of breathing and how air moves in and out of the body.  You become aware of how fast you are breathing, gradually slow it down, and breath deeper into the abdomen.

1. Get comfortable in your chair and relax with hands resting comfortably in you lap or on your legs
2. Close your eyes
3. Focus on your breathing and mentally follow the air as it moves in through the nose and out through the mouth
4. As you follow the breath, become aware of the speed by counting the seconds of inhale and exhale.  Inhale 1 – 2 – 3, Exhale 1 – 2 – 3, would be a 3 count breath
5. When you are comfortable, slow your breathing down by adding 1 count to the inhale and exhale.  Inhale 1 – 2 – 3 – 4, Exhale 1 – 2 – 3 – 4, would be a 4 count breath
6. Be aware of how deep the breath seems to sink in the chest.  Allow the abdomen to expand to make room for a deeper inhale, lower in the chest
7. Continue this exercise for 3-5 minutes consciously slowing and deepening the breath.  Don’t force it.  Your body will need to get used to the new breath pattern, so don’t try to go any slower until it’s comfortable
8. Try to add 1 – 3 counts to your breathing over 5 minutes of practice

Why it helps:  Normal breathing is 12-16 breaths per minute (source).  Job stress can trigger your nervous system to make your breathing quick and high in the chest to prepare for danger (fight or flight).  Slowing down and deepening your breathing reverses the stress response and creates a relaxation response instead.  It increases the oxygen in your blood stream and tells your body to stop releasing stress hormones (source).

Also, focusing deeply on breathing gives the mind a rest (similar to the guided relaxation technique.) A typical work day often requires shallow, divided focus across dozens of complex tasks. Meditation is the inverse and allows you to focus very deeply on the the simple act of breathing. It’s like a spa day for the brain.

Putting It Into Practice At Work

For many of us, work is where most of our daily stress comes from. It’s best to combat stress at the source and deal with the cause whenever possible.  However, if you can’t stop the source (boss, client, peer, employee, deadline, etc.) you can reverse the effects with meditation practices. 

• Sit in a Comfortable Chair – You do not have to sit on the floor or fold your legs into any special positions. Use a chair and get as comfortable as possible.
• Find a Comfortable Location – Meditate where you feel like you can relax and not be interrupted. If you are at home, use a room that isn’t used much during the day (bedroom). If you are in an office, use your desk if you can, or move to an empty office, break area, outside. (I often meditated in my car throughout my corporate career.)
• Practice Regularly – Try to get into the habit of meditating a few minutes every day.  There are cumulative benefits.
• Meditate Between Stressors – Use the guided relaxation and/or meditative breathing right after a stressor occurs (angry boss, mind-numbing meeting, nasty client, etc.) Don’t give it a chance to accumulate.
• A 15 Minute Break is Plenty of Time – You can meditate for 10 minutes and still have a little time left over for yourself.
• Borrow a Few Minutes From Beginnings, Ends, and The Future – Salaried employees that don’t get breaks can still duck out of a meeting early (it’s possible and totally worth it), spend a few minutes at the beginning of lunch, or block off future time on their calendar.
• Don’t Create Stress In The Process – If you are in an office setting, let your boss know this is something you are doing on breaks (so they don’t think you’re sleeping / slacking).  If you’re working remotely, don’t forget to turn off the camera on your computer.
• Manage Expectations – Sitting at a desk in an office gives the impression you are working, even if it’s your break time. Hang an “on-a-break” sign or better yet, relocate to anywhere other than your desk to avoid the wrong impression.

I have used and taught meditation in my business and personal life for over 20 years.  I’ve seen it reduce countless people’s blood pressures by 10 – 20 points the very first time they tried it.  The techniques are effective for relieving job stress from day one, and help you build up a mental resilience to stress over time.  Once you get into a the habit, you’ll start to realize other benefits like superhuman focus and the ability to outthink your problems (future article).  Start with 10 minutes per day, a few times per week, and watch how your work experience transforms!

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