What makes for a healthy working environment ?
Most of us will spend one third of our adult life at work. It’s a big chunk of time and how we feel about our professional life impacts every part of our physical and mental wellbeing. How we feel before and after shift impacts significantly on our time with our family and friends, it has a huge impact on our overall well being, our sleep hygiene; and how motivated we are to perform at our best maximising our true potential.
Offering employees, a regular yoga practice in the workplace will definitely have some amazing benefits to the individual and the organisation.
Key benefits of a yoga practice include addressing stress levels, improved fitness levels and improved group dynamics.
A regular yoga practice can help to hold a safe space for a person who has unresolved trauma, to feel a release and a sense of letting go and leaving it all on your mat.
Yoga practices can also create higher levels of motivation and drive in the workplace which ripples into a person’s life. Creating awareness that staff wellbeing is an important subject – for both employers and employees. The benefits of offering a yoga practice for employees are proven both scientifically and, the results, seen and felt by the employers who invest in the wellbeing of their staff.
Professionals working in challenging environments.
Different professions can create challenging environments which will historically have a higher level of stress on the professional than other sectors due to the nature of the work. When dealing with the public customers, you can be faced with challenging situations , sensitive issues,financial deadlines, work related pressure and staffing issues. Typically, the management of this stress is focused on leadership roles, peer support and the HR department.
My services will look at reducing stress and improving job satisfaction for the collective.
By simply offering Yoga as an additional stress management support, the service can only benefit the employees and also allow for an accessible stress management tool that can be supported at home also.
In 2015 the HAS found 17% of the Irish work force experienced work-related stress with the health sector accounting for 18% of this cohort. These statistics have doubled since the impact of COVID-19. For Irish employees’ emotional demands are most related to the cause of the stress with dealing with angry clients being the main cause.
Attracting and retaining the best staff
Having a meaningful staff wellness strategy is now a vital addition to the overall wellbeing of an organisation. Yoga can make a positive difference between the organisation’s culture and environment when recruiting new staff. Employees that feel valued are more loyal to their employer and team dynamic and tend to be more invested in their performance.
Yoga which includes meditation, sound therapy and breathing techniques is proven to enhance mental agility, resulting in better decision making and focus while on shift, leading to a more productive day. A win win for both employer and employee.
More energised, motivated staff.
Yoga classes are a particularly good way to build greater levels of energy and fitness for a person. Yoga can help to improve sleep so it’s easy to see why staff perform better when they participate in a corporate yoga program. Yoga allows the practitioner to experience the combination of external appreciation by the employer and internal contentment through regular practise. This leading to higher levels of energy, motivation, fulfilment, and job satisfaction.
Healthier staff
Recent studies show that 53% of all workdays lost are as a result of stress, so anything that helps to reduces stress will contribute directly to a reduction in workdays lost. One way to reduce stress that is scientifically proven, is a regular practice of yoga and meditation.……..
Physical fitness is directly linked to having a stronger immune system and being more resilient, which is why workplace exercise is a core part of most staff wellbeing programmes. But workplace yoga goes further as is it has been proven to have greater wellbeing benefits than exercises as the breathwork and meditation has an overall mind, body and spiritual effect on the person.
Healing benefits
Yoga and meditation improve mood and make people feel more positive by releasing serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins. Scientifically proven to actually make people feel happier and more content with their life.
Yoga has been clinically recommended for stress release and as a form of therapy to channel unresolved trauma through breath, movement, and meditation. Yoga, meditation and breathwork also have so many healing benefits which allows a person to be held in a safe space to heal any unresolved trauma and release emotional baggage in a safe nurturing environment.
The main physical benefits are that it reduces heart rate, blood pressure, tension and ultimately has a positive effect on anxiety, PTST and depression.
Team morale
Yoga classes tend to be done in groups. Shared experiences that go beyond a purely work focus, are known to help teams form strong, beneficial bonds. At this particular time, there is additional benefit in connecting colleagues as we have been working remotely for far too long due to the impact of Covid 19 on our social skills.
Since Covid-19 arrived, many people are experiencing more stress in their daily life and their workplace. This is just one of the many new stresses and challenges we all face, and a well-constructed staff wellbeing programme can make a significant positive difference to any organisation.
