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0:00
Hello, my name is Niamh Imbusch.
I'm a lecturer in the
Faculty of Business at
Technological University
Dublin in Ireland.
In today's lecture,
we'll be introducing the
concept of mindfulness
and exploring how and why it
is used in the workplace.
0:20
In this lecture, we will be
considering what is mindfulness,
what is the connection
if any between
mindfulness and
workplace well-being,
what approaches are taken
to introducing mindfulness
in the workplace and what if
any evidence exists to
support their work.
Finally, we'll think about
things to think about.
How do we get it right?
0:43
In a recent article in
Harvard Business Review,
it was stated that
almost half of
American employers
offer some form
of mindfulness training
to their workers.
The article stated that
the global corporate
wellness market
is valued at over $50 billion.
Indeed many household names that
you might be familiar with
are well publicized
as offering or as
having offered mindfulness
programs to their employees.
Just some of these
companies include Google,
Intel, Microsoft, SAP,
General Mills, and Aetna.
1:22
What is mindfulness?
There are many definitions,
over 100 in all.
For our purposes, we
focus on the term
as it was introduced
by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
In the late 1970s,
Kabat-Zinn, a medical
practitioner,
established a stress
reduction clinic
at the University of
Massachusetts Medical School.
Kabat-Zinn had been a
longtime practitioner of
Zen Buddhism and also enjoyed
the benefits of Hatha Yoga.
He combined elements of
these practices with
his scientific
knowledge to develop
a program called mindfulness-based
stress reduction,
MBSR, offering it firstly
to people attending a clinic
for chronic back pain.
That program was such a success
that other people
became interested in it
and it has since been offered
in many therapeutic domains.
We are interested in it
because it has moved into
the personal and professional
development domains
and we can see that it is being
offered extensively
in workplaces.
Kabat-Zinn describes
mindfulness as paying attention
in a particular way, on purpose,
in the present moment
and non-judgmentally.
You can read more
about this program
in his book Full
Catastrophe Living.
