Meditation in the Workplace?

prostoalex writes "Nortel, Texas Instruments, Raytheon, Google, Apple and many others are apparently finding meditation and yoga to be a very efficient way to motivate and energize the employees. BusinessWeek finds that the reasons companies are suddenly hiring the yoga experts and conducting regular classes are easily justified to the management: "increased brain-wave activity, enhanced intuition, better concentration, and the alleviation of the kinds of aches and pains that plague employees most"."

Comments

Another Case of Hawthorne

[WTFRUDOINBiotch]

It's not the Yoga thats helping, it's the attention. People love to feel needed!

What about religion?

[Hiawatha]

I've nothing against this meditation idea, but I can't help wondering. Would a company support employee prayer breaks? Not that I advocate such a practice--I can pray anytime I want, without company authorization. I'm just curious, is all...

Yeah, this is a positive trend...

[An Onerous Coward]

Did anyone catch this?

"Sometimes meditation classes are offered as a gesture of thanks for a job well done. Consider AOL Time Warner Inc., where the sales and marketing group was reduced from 850 to 500 people three years ago. Meditation classes were incorporated to help employees deal with the new 12-hour days.

You want to reduce stress in the workplace? Why not start by not giving your employees twelve hour work days?

Corporate sponsored religious practice

[joshmccormack]

Why is it people are comfortable with companies sponsoring Yoga, a religious practice? Meditation is one thing, but:

http://www.niharonline.com/culture/religion/cul_ re li_hin.php
Bhagavat-Gita, a part of the epic Mahabharata, expounds the synthesis of three yogas or ways of attaining union with the Supreme Self, Gyana-yoga (union through knowledge), Bhakti-yoga (union through devotion) and Karma-yoga (union through action).

http://www.classicalyoga.org/Page18.html
There has been and continues to be much confusion over what is religion and/or spirituality. In actuality, these two words have an identical meaning. "Religion" comes from the Latin root "religio" which means "to link-back" to the spirit. This is the identical meaning of the word "Yoga" which comes from the Sanskrit "Yuj;" i.e., "to yoke" to the spirit. Even before the word "Yoga" was used, the Vedas (Hindu scripture) use the word "Yajna" which essentially means "sacrifice." The word "sacrifice" comes from the Latin translation "sacred doing." With this understanding, one becomes aware of the inseparable nature of Yoga/Religion/Spirituality.

Re:What a lot of Nonsense

[Dark Lord Seth]

As someone who meditates on a daily basis, I wholeheartedly disagree. Meditation is *very* useful for clearing the mind and relieving stress. It's a useful tool for collecting your thoughts, visualizing the achievement of goals, and quieting the useless chatter in your mind that keeps you from being productive. It's a technique that's been using tens of thousands of years, and it's very, very effective. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it!

That might be because it's (or at least it seems like) your own decision to meditate. There's a HUGE difference in attitude when you go meditate on your own initiative then when you're forced to meditate during work for 15 minutes, in a hurry, without being paid. I'm no expert on these things but I'd think it's very plausible that being forced to do meditation against your will and with a bad attitude towards it effectively renders it useless indeed...

That said, I think most people would rather have easier work times, more realistic goals set by management and be treated as humans instead of expendable statistics.