Mindfulness in the workplace: health research shows its effectiveness

Mindfulness is becoming increasingly popular in the world of work. As a current health trend, this form of stress management is increasingly finding its way into company health programmes: Courses on yoga, meditation or Qigong are now an integral part of many large companies' workplace health promotion programmes. Health researchers at Witten/Herdecke University (UW/H), led by Prof Dr Tobias Esch, have now presented scientific findings on the effectiveness of mindfulness training in a recent research report.

Mindfulness works

The key finding: mindfulness works! "Our research shows that mindfulness exercises have a particularly positive effect on mental health," explains Dr Maren M. Michaelsen, health researcher at the Institute for Integrative Health Care and Health Promotion. "Individual stress levels in particular are greatly reduced by mindfulness training." However, positive effects can also be demonstrated with regard to other parameters such as well-being, ability to recover, self-reference and self-regulation as well as burnout risk.

The analysis also shows that digital offers, for example through mindfulness apps, are in no way inferior to face-to-face mindfulness training. "In terms of job satisfaction and burnout risk, we were even able to identify significantly stronger effects with digital interventions than with analogue training," says Michaelsen. What's more, in the case of analogue face-to-face formats, group formats are more effective than individual mindfulness training. This is where the research team sees the greatest potential: "The social nature of the group setting in most companies, industries or professional groups means that mindfulness training can also be used to practise interpersonal skills such as empathy in a collaborative setting."

Prerequisites for mindfulness in the workplace

However, simply offering courses is not enough to integrate mindfulness into corporate culture in a truly sustainable way - structures that enable and promote mindfulness are also needed. The research team led by Dr Maren M. Michaelsen has identified three key aspects: "Firstly, mindfulness must be institutionalised, both in terms of space and organisation. This means that there needs to be a representative place for mindfulness, a 'room of silence' or something similar, as well as representative organisational units such as a 'mindfulness department'. Secondly, an appreciative corporate culture and responsible individuals who represent and exemplify the topic help to establish mindfulness. And thirdly, a suitable programme structure should be developed that, among other things, is voluntary, defines adequate cost sharing and is based on an appreciative atmosphere overall."

The results of the effectiveness analysis of mindfulness in the workplace were recently published in the current iga.report by the Health and Work Initiative. The report is available free of charge as a PDF:
https://www.iga-info.de/veroeffentlichungen/igareporte/igareport-45