Corporate yoga and lunchtime mini-sessions are available onsite at your location. Mini-sessions (30 to 45 minutes) focus on any of a variety of techniques to boost energy levels, foster focus and concentration, and reduce stress. Chair yoga, breathing exercises and simple meditation techniques all can be part of the mix -- so no change of clothes or physical workout is necessary, unless desired.

Who's doing yoga and why? Here's some data from the 2008 Yoga in America study, commissioned by Yoga Journal. The Harris Interactive Service Bureau poll surveyed 5,050 respondents, a statistically representative sample of the total US population. Yoga Journal commissioned RRC Associates, a research firm in Boulder, Colo., to perform the data analysis.

• 6.9% of US adults, or 15.8 million people, practice yoga
• 8% of current non-yoga-practitioners, or 18.3 million Americans, say they are very or extremely interested in yoga
• 4.1% of non-practitioners, or about 9.4 million people, say they will definitely try yoga within the next year
• 49.4% of current practitioners started practicing yoga to improve their overall health
• 52% are motivated to practice yoga to improve their overall health
• 6.1%, or nearly 14 million Americans, say that a doctor or therapist has recommended yoga to them
• 45% of all adults polled agree that yoga would be a beneficial if they were undergoing treatment for a medical condition

Yoga is not a hard sell to your employees. It's a fitness and stress-reduction modality that people are curious about and want to try.

Effectiveness does not depend on doing a full, weekly physical yoga class. Learning and practicing yogic techniques such as basic breathing and meditation exercises can offer significant benefits. As reported in a January 2011 edition of ScienceDaily:

“Participating in an 8-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. In a study that will appear in the January 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain's grey matter.”

Results of a study published in the June 2009 issue of Health Education & Behavior showed that workplace stress was signficantly reduced when participants attended a one-hour weekly group class during lunch and practiced 20 minutes of meditation and yoga per day at their desks. After six weeks, program participants reported that they were more aware of external stressors, they felt less stressed by life events, and they fell asleep more easily than did a control group that did not experience the intervention.

“Because chronic stress is associated with chronic disease, I am focusing on how to reduce stress before it has a chance to contribute to disease,” said Maryanna Klatt, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of clinical allied medicine at Ohio State University.

Findings of this pilot study indicate that employees can significantly reduce their health care utilization because they’re less stressed.

Management consultant Jeffrey A. Miller writes, in his excellent book The Anxious Organization:

“In seeking to relieve their own anxiety, individuals usually pass it on to someone else. Thus, anxiety tends to travel in cycles that have no clear starting point while the underlying cause of the anxiety goes unaddressed. Because a organization is a system in which all members are connected, an individual can change the entire system by changing his or her own behavior.”

And, as part of an overall wellness program, Timothy McCall, MD writes, in Yoga as Medicine:

“As someone who has been an MD for over twenty years, I can tell you that yoga is quite simply the most powerful system of overall health and well-being I have ever seen. Even if you are currently among what might be called the temporarily healthy, as preventive medicine, yoga is as close to one-stop shopping as you can find. This single comprehensive system can reduce stress, increase flexibility, improve balance, promote strength, heighten cardiovascular conditioning, lower blood pressure, reduce overweight, strengthen bones, prevent injuries, lift mood, improve immune function, increase the oxygen supply to the tissues, heighten sexual functioning and fulfillment, foster psychological equanimity, and promote spiritual well-being . . . and that's only a partial list.”

Relevant background and research to explore:
•For an interesting take on the benefits of yoga in the workplace, see this New York Post feature.
• Meditation changes brain structure in 8 weeks (research from Massachusetts General Hospital, funded by the National Institutes of Health).
• Here's a recent NPR story on yoga and its health benefits.
• Also from NPR (listen only if you have a sense of humor), there's the very twisted office yoga meditation. Its mordent humor provides key insights into why real yoga and meditation can be essential at work.
• December 2010 Harvard Business Review research on the benefits of corporate wellness programs.
• And, the University of Wisconsin begins research on the subject “Can Meditation Change Your Brain?” (from the CNN Belief blog).

• January 2012 New York Post feature on the growing popularity of meditation in the corporate workplace.

To discuss how yoga-derived techniques can assist in organizational change from within, please contact us.

"My body has changed in ways I wouldn't have believed possible, as has my mental state. The more I put into my yoga practice, the greater the rewards have become."—Timothy McCall, MD, Yoga as Medicine

"They must change often, who would be constant in happiness."—Confucius