Employee happiness is at an all-time low. Morale is bad, and your people are being actively recruited by competitors. Now more than ever is the time to show your employees how much you appreciate them! This post contains a downloadable graphic of industries ranked by happiness.
Part III: Sleep
(Click here for Part I: Relaxation and here for Part II: Meditation)
So far we’ve covered relaxation and deep relaxation in the form of meditation. Now let’s talk about the ultimate in relaxation – sleep. Everyone needs it and most aren’t getting enough of it – to the detriment of every area of our lives. You’ll want to stay awake for this.
In “The Healing Power of Sleep,” Pamela Weintraub, Executive Editor of Discover magazine and author of Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic, uncovers just how sleep deprived we are as a nation, the detriment sleep-deprivation does to our bodies and minds and how we can turn this nocturnal habit around.
“People devalue sleep and are completely unaware of what happens to them when they have a deficit,” says James Maas, PhD, a recently retired Cornell scientist and one of the world’s foremost sleep researchers, according to Weintraub’s article. “As a society we are so habituated to low levels of sleep that most of us don’t know what it feels like to be fully alert and awake.”
University of Chicago sleep researcher David Gozal, MD, adds that we treat sleep like a “tradable commodity,” sacrificing it for everything from work responsibilities to entertainment or other lifestyle choices. We create this deficit because it can take upwards of months or years for symptoms of a sleep deprivation-related disease to surface, according to Gozal.
How many of you have used the phrase, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead?” I know I have.
According to Weintraub’s article, sleep deprivation, even by as little as one hour a night, can wreak massive havoc in the body and mind. Most people are aware by now that lack of sleep creates increased food cravings, increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol and disrupted metabolism, all of which can lead to weight gain. However, not getting enough Zs can perpetuate a plethora of other lesser-known symptoms, such as hair loss, hearing loss, skin problems, insulin resistance, vision problems, sexual functioning and even cancer.
In her article, Weintraub recounts the story of Jason Karp, a 36-year-old hedge-fund manager and restaurateur who had reached a dangerous level of sleep deprivation before he sought help. An ambitious learner, Karp taught himself to speed-read and would spend long hours reading as opposed to getting adequate sleep – sometimes sleeping just two or three hours a night.
Karp began seeing double and was diagnosed with keratoconus, a disease that causes the cornea to progressively degenerate, sometimes necessitating a transplant. Then, he began experiencing prostate pain. His hair fell out in clumps and he broke out in a rash. Finally, one doctor told him his cortisol level was so high he may not live to see 40. Karp legitimately believed he was dying.
When Karp came across a bit of research that linked his rash to his keratoconus, he decided to try and cure himself by getting more sleep and altering his diet. Though it took some time for Karp to retrain himself to sleep, about six months later he had recovered from every symptom he was suffering with. And although Karp is an extreme case of someone who trained himself to forgo sleep, these are real symptoms that can occur in anyone suffering from lack of sleep.
Find out if you are sleep deprived by taking the quiz devised by James B. Maas, PhD. How else can you incorporate more rest, relaxation and sleep into your weekly agenda? Do you think you’d benefit from slowing down and taking time out for yourself during the day? What positive changes do you think you’d see? Talk to us in the “Comments” section below!
Part II: Meditation
(Click here for Part I: Relaxation)
While you’re on one of your breaks, why not try a little meditation on for size? Meditation may seem like a fad due to its recent rise in popularity in the States, but it’s a wellness practice that’s been helping people around the world for thousands of years. As daunting as it is to even think about sitting still and being quiet in this time of hustle and bustle, even adding a few minutes of meditation into your daily or weekly routine promotes life-sustaining benefits.
In “The Strength to Sit Still,” EXPERIENCE L!FE fitness editor Jen Sinkler recounts her first attempt at meditation as a fitness buff and how it not only altered her thoughts about meditation, but her thoughts about thinking in general.
Instead of “crack[ing] open the meditation CDs that I bought three years ago,” Sinkler went all out for her first meditation experience with a 3-day beginner’s retreat at Shambhala Mountain Center (SMC) in Red Feather Lakes, Colo. “…stillness emanates from the surroundings here, and when I arrive I finally feel like I have time to meditate,” Sinkler says. “Cell phones don’t work and my laptop is back home, edged out by the towel on the SMC packing list. I suspect this sort of sacred space can be created anywhere, but signing up for a retreat has given me formal permission to carve it out for myself.”
According to Sinkler’s instructor, Charles Rosicky, “The first rule of meditation is to have no expectations,” Sinkler recounts in the article. “It’s like being excited to go on vacation. The vacation you go on is never the vacation you think you’re going to go on. In the same way, it’s better to meditate without ambition.”
Unfortunately, Sinkler broke this rule. “I didn’t expect to find enlightenment over the weekend, but I did want the act of meditating to feel blissful, life-altering and important,” she says. “I didn’t go on the vacation I thought I was going on. Meditation felt…ordinary. Unspectacular and, at times, like déjà vu.”
But here is where Sinkler’s moment of insight came through. Although she arrived at SMC thinking she had never meditated before, she had in fact experienced the “flow state” of meditation many times, “during particularly good workouts or standout rugby games, where my focus was so singular it became everything.”
That’s all meditation is, anyway – focusing your attention on the task at hand; remaining in the present moment when unrelated thoughts attempt to disrupt your meditative flow. Focusing on your breath is a great way to get started. Sit comfortably and breathe. When your mind starts to wander, which it inevitably will, bring your focus back to your breath. The point of meditation is not to clear your mind. That is impossible. The point is to allow your thoughts to pass by your consciousness without reacting. You can always come back to them later.
“One of the first benefits is that you begin to see that you are not your thoughts,” says Ron West, ecologist for Boulder County Parks and longtime meditator, who was one of Sinkler’s instructors on the retreat. “We self-identify with our thoughts – meaning, bad thoughts equal bad person. You slowly see that thoughts arise in a vast and neutral space, and that it is possible to see that the mind is not solid. The thoughts just become interesting-to-look-at fish swimming in a very large aquarium.”
Sinkler has since incorporated 10 to 30 minutes of near-daily meditation into her weekly routine and has been singing its praises and reaping its benefits ever since her weekend retreat.
Stay tuned later this week when we wrap up our series with Part III - Sleep!
Part I: Relaxation
We’ve talked a lot about exercising, eating right and the benefits of corporate wellness to your bottom line in our monthly column. But something we haven’t discussed is how sleep, relaxation and meditation all contribute to your overall health and well-being.
The March 2013 issue of EXPERIENCE L!FE magazine is chock full of information related to all three of these areas that seem to fly under the wellness radar. Many people don’t realize that rest, recovery and relaxation are just as important to a healthy lifestyle as nutrition, exercise and hydration. Relaxation in particular is beneficial in the workplace, since giving your brain a break lets it recharge and gear up for the next big task.
In “Take a Break,” the EXPERIENCE L!FE team urges that, “Random moments of ‘unproductive’ time don’t just make you healthier, happier and more resilient. They help you work smarter, too.” For example, have you ever come up with a brilliant idea whilst showering? We have, too – and so have plenty of other people, which prompted a discussion of this very topic in “Take a Break”:
You’ve no doubt heard the rumored story of Archimedes, who shouted his now-legendary ‘Eureka!’ when he stepped into the bath, saw his bathwater rise and suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he’d submerged, abruptly intuiting the answer to what had previously been an intractable mathematical problem.
“There’s a reason so much genius has occurred in bathrooms…and it’s the same reason we often get great ideas while puttering in the garden, getting a facial, taking a walk or just waking up from a nap,” the article states. “Because these are precisely the types of circumstances in which we’re not trying to come up with genius ideas, or really any ideas at all.”
Cognitive neuroscientist Mark Jung-Beeman, PhD, a researcher at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., has dedicated his working life to studying the brain circuits involved in these eureka moments and offered up his insight for the article:
The body is relatively relaxed; the brain is being allowed to do whatever it likes, its circuits freed up for whatever associations and information-shuttling activities it deems worthwhile. And it’s those random associations that seem key both to large-scale breakthroughs and handy “aha!” moments. … While the brain lays much of the groundwork for insight by expending focused attention on a particular problem, certain parts of the brain must actually relax and be allowed to wander a bit for the necessary connections and associations (most of which are churned up by the more loosely organized right hemisphere) to be made.
According to the article, psychologist Joy Bhattacharya, PhD, a researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London, has perpetuated this point by using electroencephalography (EEG) to predict these aha moments up to eight seconds before they even occur. One key indicator is the presence of alpha waves – the brain-wave pattern associated with relaxation – emanating from the right hemisphere of the brain. Bhattacharya suggests this activity makes the mind more susceptible to new and creative ideas.
The moral of this story is that, “Beyond a certain point, sitting for hours at your desk and working harder to solve that problem or come up with that big idea may actually work against you.” The article suggests listening for your “ultradian rhythms” – bodily cycles that occur many times throughout your day – and paying attention to when your body is telling you it’s time for a break. Get up for 20 minutes after every 90- to 120- minute cycle of energy expenditure and let your brain recharge. You’ll end up being more productive than if you don’t!
Stay tuned next week when we cover Parts II and III of our series - Meditation and Sleep!
Work-related stress is not a new concept, but what exactly are the implications of being stressed out at work or due to workplace factors? A recent article in Incentive Magazine addresses this issue.
In “Worker Stress is a Top Concern,” writer Alex Palmer focuses the results of a new report by UK-based health insurance company Aviva, which shows that employers are starting to take the health of their employees into greater consideration.
About two-thirds (65 percent) of employers say it’s more important than ever to protect the health of their employees, with 43 percent offering programs to encourage work-life balance, 21 percent promoting healthy eating and the same amount offering cycle-to-work programs. These efforts have had an impact on employees: 57 percent said that if they feel healthy, they are more productive at work, while 52 percent believe that they are more loyal to a company that helped them look after their health.
While the focus on employees’ health is improving, stress is still a top concern, according to the report. Palmer’s article states that more than half – about 53 percent – of employees responded that stress is a problem within their places of employment.
“Over the years we’ve seen an increased appetite for workplace well-being,” says Mark Noble, health director for UK Life for Aviva, in the report as quoted in Palmer’s article. “Moreover, we’ve seen a gradual recognition of the importance of putting proactive solutions into place to help keep employees healthy and aid early intervention.”
Increased expectations within many of these jobs may be part of the reason for this motivation toward healthier lifestyles, according to Palmer. For some employers, it is becoming a necessity for their employees to work harder and put in more hours, which makes a case for maintaining optimal health by practicing healthy habits.
Underestimating job requirements may also be leading to increased employee stress. According to Palmer’s article, “55 percent of employees report that a high-pressure work environment has become the norm, compared to just 26 percent of employers who said the same.”
What kinds of practices are in place to help offset the effects of stress in your office? Do your employers actively promote healthy habits both at work and at home? What personal tactics do you take when you feel the effects of stress creeping in that could potentially help some of your employees or coworkers? Talk to us in the “Comments” section below!
A hot topic this year within both the incentive realm and the wellness realm has been the rise of obesity in America and the growing importance for health initiatives in the workplace. Incentive Magazine covers this topic in its November/December issue in an article titled “To Your Health” by senior editor Andrea Doyle. The main crux of the article focuses on wellness initiatives being not only good for your employees, but good for your bottom line by lowering insurance premiums.
Doyle’s article starts out by saying that, while most Americans are well aware of what it takes to be healthy, many are not willing to put forth the effort toward maintaining their health. She cites a study called “F is in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2012,” which states, “By 2030, medical costs associated with treating preventable obesity-related diseases are estimated to increase by $48 billion to $66 billion in the US, and the loss in economic productivity could be between $390 billion and $580 billion annually by 2030.” This also translates to exorbitant medical costs spent on treating issues that are entirely preventable.
To combat this – and in direct response to employees spending more and more time in the office and generally sedentary – companies are offering wellness incentives to help raise awareness and offer motivation for choosing habits that have huge payoffs but are often very challenging to stick with, especially during holiday season and other times of year.
One such company noted in the article is Hallmark Business Connections, which offers 13 weeks of weight loss classes to employees. If an employee attends 12 of the 13 classes, the company pays for the program, according to Jennifer Patel, who leads Hallmark’s health and wellness team.
“A colleague lost almost 50 pounds as a result of participating in this program, and it has changed her life,” Patel says. “It’s also proof that if you provide opportunities and incentives for your employees to make behavior changes, amazing things can happen.”
Doyle points to another company in her article, FC USA, which has its own full-time wellness guru in Susan Levy Malandra – whose official title is Healthwise Coordinator for the company. While hiring a full-time health coordinator may be out of reach for many companies, the programs Malandra uses to motivate her colleagues are not.
Malandra, who has 20 years of teaching group fitness classes under her belt, uses pedometers, contests and organized runs to help motivate her FC USA colleagues. She also travels around the country and meets with all US-based employees for “Bio Age” consultations, which tests a variety of physical, nutritional and lifestyle factors to determine the employees overall well-being, or Bio Age.
Malandra notes that follow-up is key to success and she regularly checks in on employees’ progress and writes a monthly newsletter that includes healthy lifestyle tips and recipes. And as an incentive to stay on track or meet goals, FC USA offers trips, merchandise, raffles and cash rewards to its employees for maintaining their healthy lifestyles.
Implementing a wellness initiative at your company isn’t hard, but it does take time, creativity and the interest of your employees. The first steps are always the hardest, but if you can find ways to motivate your employees and incentivize their progress and goals, you’ll be that much closer to increased productivity and decreased medical costs. Plus, you’ll be setting up your employees for a lifetime of wellness, and there is truly nothing more important than your health!
Please check out this infographic from Compliance and Safety, a vendor of safety videos. The graphic outlines some interesting statistics about workplace wellness initiatives and the growing importance of educating your employees about exercise and nutrition.
