Living Mindfully with Aruna Manathunge:

Mindfulness in the Business World

[Part 1]

The bell chimed loudly in the quiet hall. Its melodious sound resonated on the walls of the hall and the group of seated listeners. The Mindfulness Coach had instructed the listeners to focus on the sound of the bell with absolute attention and to be aware of it completely - as it happens, in the present moment.

The sound of the bell starts to recede gradually.....into nothingness, into non-existence. The listeners had been instructed to maintain that same level of rapt attention and present moment awareness even when the sound of the bell fades into nothingness. After a few moments the bell chimes again loudly, filling the ears of the listeners with its melodious sound. Then the sound once again starts to fade away .......

The above was a scene from a Mindfulness Training session conducted for the employees of a large company in Sri Lanka. The exercise is named 'Listening to the Bell of Silence' and is an important basic practice for beginners of Mindfulness. It helps to develop the attention and focus of the practitioners at various stimulation levels. It is relatively easy to be attentive in the present moment to a loudly chiming bell. However, it is not easy to maintain that same level of attention and focus when the sound of the bell fades away into oblivion. It is a simple but a highly effective practice for those starting Mindfulness.

The immense benefits of training the employees in Mindfulness have been realized by many large global companies. The benefits are primarily twofold. The employees learn a practice that helps to reduce their high levels of stress and re-discover meaningful happier lives. The companies gain higher performing and a more productive set of employees due to their improved Emotional Intelligence, Creativity and energy.

Google was one of the first global entities to realize this potential. Google even have a permanent in-house teaching program at their Headquarters and separate meditation rooms for employees to practice Mindfulness during any time of the day. As a result thousands of Google employees have learned attention-focus techniques and meditation which has helped them to free up mental space for creativity. Google's initiator of the Mindfulness program fondly recalls his early days of learning meditation in Sri Lanka! Another pioneering Global company is General Mills, a Fortune 500 Company. Now the Silicon Valley has become a hotbed for Mindfulness classes and conferences. Once the famous Apple co-founder Steve Jobs mentioned that his Mindfulness practice was directly responsible for his ability to concentrate and ignore distractions.

In the recent past, the scientists have been able to prove that Mindfulness training can lower blood cortisol levels and blood pressure, increase immune response and even affect the gene expression. The emerging new science called Epigenetics, has started to show that our minds can re-program the Genes through systematic and long-term practice of Mindfulness.

Scientific study has also shown that regular meditation has an impact on the structure of the brain itself. Building on the discovery that brains can change based on experiences and are not as previously believed, static masses that are set by the time a person reaches adulthood, the scientists have explained this ability of the brain as Neuroplasticity.

A recently published study investigated pre- and post-changes in brain grey-matter concentration among a group who participated in a meditation program. It showed that after just eight weeks of Mindfulness training there were significant increases in grey-matter concentration in brain regions involved in learning and memory process, emotion regulation, self-referential processing and perspective-taking.

Globally the eight weeks of Mindfulness training has become the standard for imparting the benefits of this invaluable practice. New research has found that the beneficial effects of Mindfulness training usually last for 9 months even after a course of Mindfulness training.

A growing group of neuroscientists are now studying whether Mindfulness could counteract what happens to our minds due to stress, trauma and constant distraction. These scientific research have fuelled the rapid growth of Mindfulness programs inside the Global corporations.

We will look into specific areas of benefits for the Work places in greater depth in our next article.

(Aruna Manathunge has practiced Mindfulness for over 42 years. During the past 7 years he has closely followed the development of Mind Science in the Western world. He has had a long career as the Country Head of Sri Lanka and the Head of the Indian Sub-Continent of an American Pharmaceutical Multinational company. Presently Aruna conducts Coaching in Mindfulness to Schools and Companies.

Aruna can be contacted at [email protected])