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TC North
May 30, 2017
3 Min Read
If you’re feeling stressed—or worse, burned out—you know how it can affect your job performance and your home life. But relieving that stress is easier than you think. And research shows it.
Research at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center supports the growing body of good research demonstrating that mindfulness training decreases the response to stress. Members of the medical school’s intensive care unit participated in an eight-week mindfulness-based training which included meditation, breathing exercises, yoga and gentle stretching.
If you get stressed working in natural products, whole foods or nutraceutical industry, imagine the stress of working in an ICU where everything you do has a life or death consequence. If ICU members get the results they did, what kind of result might you get?
Study participants completed a questionnaire about their stress level before and after the eight-week training. Researchers also collected saliva samples to study the biomarkers of stress reactivity.
The findings were amazing. At the end of the study, the participants reported no change in how much stress they had in their job. After all, they were still dealing with life-and-death situations and decisions. However, the measures of their stress reactivity decreased 40 percent, while a comparison control group showed no change at all.
The 40 percent decrease in the biomarkers of stress reactivity reflects a change in the sympathetic nervous system, which controls excitement (the flight-or-flight survival response). Another astonishing part of this finding is that the participants weren’t aware of this change, but their bodies certainly were!
Here's a beginning breathing exercise to help enhance mindfulness. This breath meditation exercise will take you to the next level:
Beginner breath relaxation: using all of your senses to enhance awareness
Choose a place to be alone. A quiet place with few distractions allows you to better focus.
Sit comfortably. Sit so you can pay full attention to only your breathing. If possible, sit in a chair or a position that you aren’t likely to fall asleep in. Sitting without back support will also keep you from dozing off.
Start with your hand on your abdomen. Breathe in, keeping your chest and abdomen as relaxed as possible, until you see and/or feel your hand on your abdomen gently rise as your breath fills the lower part of your lungs.
Use your mouth and nose. As you breathe, inhale through your nose and exhale out your mouth. Practice this until it becomes comfortable.
Become aware of sound. Listen to your breath. What does it sound like as you breathe into your nose and the air goes deep into your lungs? Does it sound the same or different when you exhale out your mouth? Continue paying attention to the sound until you can hear the nuances distinctly.
Notice feelings. Observe how the air feels as it comes in your nose and how it feels as you exhale out your mouth. Note the temperature of the air and the sensation in your nose, throat and airways. Notice the feeling of your abdomen and chest expanding. Then notice what your breath feels like, all the nuances
When your mind wanders from paying attention to only your breath, which it will, gently bring your awareness back to the above details.
Developing mindfulness by paying attention to your breath gives you much greater control of your stress reactivity, just like the ICU study participants. Everyone can gain much greater control over their stress reactivity and, therefore, their emotions. How will you do it?
TC North, PhD, is co-author of the best selling book, Fearless Leaders, a high-performance executive coach and leadership speaker. He eats clean, is a dedicated supplement user, was a keynote co-presenter at the 2016 NBJ Summit and is committed to helping the industry create consumer trust.
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