The Work Boulevard

May 05, 2025

The Importance and Benefits of Mindfulness at Work

If you have experienced the benefits of a mindful practice like meditation, yoga or breathwork at a retreat, you’re probably wondering how to apply it in the workplace. 

It’s easy to be present and peaceful amid the lush green rice paddies of Bali, but how can you be present and peaceful with an angry client or an impossible deadline staring you in the face at work?

You’re not the only one asking these questions. There are now countless experts, companies and training courses dedicated to bringing mindfulness into the workplace. Much research is being carried out to assess the effectiveness of different mindful practices in work environments. Why? Because stress and burnout levels are reaching all-time highs and a solution is needed now more than ever. 

What is mindfulness?

Before we continue, let’s define what we mean by “mindfulness”.

For this article, we are using this definition from mindful.org: 

“Mindfulness Defined: The practice of being fully present and aware of your current experience—without overreacting or getting lost in thoughts.”

How mindfulness helps with stress at work

The WHO defines stress as “a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation.” 

See that? “Mental tension.” 

Stress is in the mind. Mindful practices are all about easing mental tension. So actually, even though mindfulness practices seem out of place in an office environment, that’s exactly where we need to practice most. 

How?

Let’s look a little closer at what goes on in the mind when we are stressed:

"Stress is caused by being "here" but wanting to be "there," or being in the present but wanting to be in the future." — Eckhart Tolle

Have you ever noticed how tense you feel NOW when you have a difficult task coming up in the FUTURE? Or how your long to-do list makes you feel overwhelmed BEFORE you even start?

There is a split in the mind when we are not “present”, i.e., when our minds are lost in the past or the future. By cultivating the practice of bringing our full attention to the present moment, we heal that split and ease that tension.

We learn to live life as it comes, to tackle problems step by step. 

That’s not to say we don’t plan for the future. You can plan ahead while staying present. It’s about not getting lost in the future. Not getting caught up in the worries and anxieties that the mind conjures up when wandering away from the present.

It’s a delicate art, but by learning to stay present, we find that life (and work) becomes much more manageable. It may even become more enjoyable!

Read: Simple Mindfulness Practices for Working Professionals

How mindfulness helps us focus at work

Those of you with a meditation practice will know how difficult it is to stay focused. When meditating, you give your mind the simplest task: “focus on the breath”, for example. 

Then you watch in horror as it wanders all over the place and cannot seem to stay with the breath for more than two seconds. That’s why monks describe the mind as a chattering monkey or a wild horse. It doesn’t seem possible to tame it. 

The truth is, it is possible. 

You know that feeling of being “in the zone” while tackling a challenging activity, tapping into a creative flow, or risking your life in an extreme sport? Athletes and artists alike know very well that it IS possible to stay fully focused on one thing for an extended time. That state of “single mind” is often also described as a state of “peace” and “bliss”. 

In meditation, you are training your mind to return to the breath again and again (and again and again and again). With daily practice, your mind wanders for shorter periods and stays focused for longer and longer periods. 

This is directly applicable to your work. When you sit down to complete a task in the office, even though distractions are inevitable, you now have the ability to bring your mind back to the task more quickly and easily than before. It’s less of a struggle.

The mindfulness program from Search Inside Yourself Global reports that 71% of participants “noticed an ability to increase focus and return to the present moment (vs. 48% before the program)”. 

How mindfulness helps with productivity at work

Improved productivity is a natural outcome of improved focus. The longer you can stay focused, the quicker you get things done. 

Productivity is a highly complex subject, impacted by a variety of factors. It is interesting to note that procrastination - one of the main impediments to productivity in Western society - is a mental-emotional phenomenon that can be directly addressed by mindfulness. 

Tim Pychyl, Ph.D., who has spent his career researching procrastination, confirms that, “Research has certainly provided evidence of a link between mindfulness and procrastination. Correlational studies with self-report questionnaires show that the more mindful we are, the less frequently we report procrastinating.” 

Procrastination is not just about getting distracted. There is an emotional element, a resistance to the task in question. Because the mind and emotions are inextricably linked, mindful practices have a positive effect on both. 

When we cultivate a mindful practice like meditation, yoga, breathwork, etc in our daily life, we are actually cultivating self-regulation and self-discipline. We are strengthening our ability to do what we don’t want to do. 

We may not realise it, but the act of getting up early every morning to meditate before work sets us up for success in all aspects of life, because we are learning to overcome our habits of resistance. 

It also comes back to being present. Rather than getting overwhelmed at the task in front of us and quitting before we start, we focus on each step, one at a time. 

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”– Lao Tzu

How mindfulness develops emotional resilience at work

As we mentioned, since the mind and emotions are inextricably linked, mindful practices have a positive impact on both. 

Emotional resilience is the ability to cope with life’s ups and downs.

How do mindful practices help us develop emotional resilience? 

If you think about it, most emotions are uncomfortable. That’s why we continually distract ourselves from them. Few of us were taught to handle our emotions in a healthy way. Society encourages us to either suppress our emotions or distract ourselves from them. There is certainly no place for emotions in most workplaces. 

Suppression of emotions has been shown to lead to many mental health problems, including chronic stress, anxiety, depression and burnout.

A mindful practice like meditation teaches us to stay present. That means to STAY with our emotions, no matter how uncomfortable they are. For many of us, it is the first time we’re not running away (physically or mentally) from discomfort. 

Slowly, these mindful practices help us cultivate our ability to face difficulties and to weather storms both inside and outside of us. And for many of us, most storms happen in the workplace.

So yes, having a mindful practice helps us become more emotionally resilient and less likely to rage quit. 

How mindfulness helps us communicate better at work

You know how the experts say that good communication is actually about good listening? It’s cliché, but true. 

How do mindful practices help you become a good listener? Well, it's a gradual process, but it goes something like this:

Better listening cultivates better understanding. Better understanding cultivates better communication. Better communication cultivates better business.

How mindfulness improves leadership at work

Speaking of listening, Forbes published research that shows that leaders with strong interpersonal skills like listening “are rated as significantly more effective than leaders who prefer dictating their orders.”

Why? Firstly, employees are more likely to rally behind a leader who listens. And secondly, “listening skills are crucial to giving leaders access to the knowledge and diversity in perspective needed to make better business decisions.”

Mindfulness helps us develop our leadership skills in many more ways than just listening.

A mindful practice such as meditation, yoga, breathwork, etc., helps us slow down and become less reactive. We are training ourselves to pause before reacting. As we become more aware of what’s going on inside us, we can catch ourselves earlier. Sparks fizzle out before they become raging fires. 

This has huge implications for interpersonal relationships both inside and outside the workplace. 

Imagine how different the workplace would be if people stopped reacting blindly and started responding more consciously? If leaders took the time to pause and consider different points of view before coming to a decision? If teams learned to question their immediate judgements and open their minds to new perspectives? 

Mindful practices help leaders become aware of their own unconscious biases and reactions. A lot is revealed when we look internally. As we develop self-awareness, we start to take responsibility for our behaviour and become more open to change. 

Calm.com expands on this. “This self-awareness can foster a deep understanding of their team members' needs, motivations, and wellbeing. Mindful leaders are known for their ability to remain calm and composed, even in high-pressure situations, allowing them to make effective, empathetic, and ethical decisions.”

Up next: Simple Mindfulness Practices for Working Professionals