During my hormonal teenage years, it was an almost everyday phenomenon to be getting on my mom’s nerves with my constant attitude, and the one thing I always remember her saying was “you need to meditate to calm down”. And so I did, by going to yoga classes, which I thought to be an ideal way of relaxing. Seems the only thing I needed all this time to get along with my mom was to have knowledge of my thoughts and feelings. All I can say now is, I’m sorry mom!
If going to yoga classes twice a week turned my completely unbearable 15-year-old self into a literal angel, imagine what it could do to a 35-year-old woman or man, working in a stressful, hectic environment, with a million things on their mind they need to do at work, and another million things they need to do once they get home! I’ve got your answer, a lot! In experiments looking at the effect of mindfulness-based programs and meditation techniques such as yoga, in different occupations offered by employers, it was seen that the wellbeing and life satisfaction of workers who participated in mindfulness trainings showed important improvements!
A meta-analysis combining data from 56 different studies, with 2689 people participating in one of the mindfulness-based programs offered at their work, delivered either at work or online and 2472 people who didn’t participate in any program, measured the effect of mindfulness training (each study used different types of programs), on the wellbeing and life satisfaction of workers before and after taking part in them, as well as the effect on other factors such as stress and resilience.
The results of the 2020 meta- analysis showed that there was quite a significant effect on the wellbeing and life satisfaction (the only outcome of the ones measured with such a big effect) of the group that participated in the mindfulness-based programs compared to the group that didn’t get any training. Let me tell you that, if my mom had the chance to read this blog a few years back it would have saved us a lot of shouting, screaming and fighting. And so, although the meta-analysis found that mindfulness training had a big effect on wellbeing and life satisfaction in workers, it was also seen that this could potentially be the case due to the publishing of studies which found important effects of mindfulness training rather than those who didn’t find any effect. The positive effect of mindfulness training on life satisfaction and wellbeing is however big enough to suggest that around 75.2% of the mindfulness group scored higher than those in the no training group. This brings us to the conclusion that my mom’s employers should also be reading this blog right now and taking notes on how to implement an effective mindfulness training program to improve my mom’s wellbeing and possibly (and I mean hopefully) make her a more calm and cheerful person with less anger issues!
So what’s the main take-home message from this meta-analysis? Mindfulness training can in fact improve the life satisfaction, health and wellbeing of workers in a significant way. And now the big question is.. will this information help me get revenge from my mom for making me go to yoga classes when I was 15 by telling her that she needs to meditate to improve her wellbeing whenever she comes back from work angry? The answer is YES, yes I can!
Is it right to assume then that if my mom participates in any type of mindfulness training program at work such as yoga, her wellbeing and life satisfaction will improve? The findings of this meta-analysis suggest that it is! So, the next time my mom tries to get her anger out on me, I’ll just make her read this without saying a word. Then I’ll probably remind her of how she made me go to yoga when I was
15 so that I could “relax” and tell her that she should get some type of mindfulness training herself to “maintain her wellbeing”, or as I like to call it, cease to annoy me!
