Let’s agree that it is one of the ways to motivate workers. I can’t agree it’s the best, but it’s on the list. It’s also definitely one of the most humane options on that list.
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Haha, funny that. Research has shown that motivation comes from Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. Three factors that tend to be in VERY short supply in most corporate jobs here in the US. One would suspect that employees completing a few sessions of mindfulness meditation would obtain the clarity of mind to identify the absences of these factors in their daily work. It would also be reasonable to assume that if mindfulness mediation were incorporated along with a change in workplace culture that added autonomy, mastery, and purpose to their jobs, there would be even greater synergistic benefit than just adding those three motivating factors alone.
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This study is a typical example of a very low-quality study on mindfulness. They have used one single meditation session (just a few minutes of it!) for participants in the experiments, and these participants were also new to meditation! With such a brief time on meditation, the chances are these people would have felt sleepy/lazy and that explains well the results they found! Hundreds of studies have shown that meditation improves many variables that contribute to motivation.
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My company does this, and it’s a quacky scam put on by a team led by a con-man who convinced some execs that he held the formula for more “employee engagement”. Looked up his background, and his doctoral work was a comparative religion bit looking at western christianity and buddhism. The hardcore Christians weren’t all that pleased being told that they’d have to meditate at our day long hotel workshop, and I wasn’t all that pleased at all the stuff that was stolen from Buddhism, twisted about and cherry picked, and then regurged as some feel good meaningless BS. Insulting to both sides of the coin really.
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White washed?
So sorry, my religion does believe in meditation, but it must be done privately in a special Excremeditation Chamber, not publicly in some hotel workshop.
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So the way this works is
- Do mindfulness or blank mind meditation (not tm, landmark, etc).
- Realize how futile your job is
- Discover the job you love and get it
- Work at your job and do 10-15 meditation after lunch each day
- Love your job and be energized, healthy and clear minded all day.
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This doesn’t make sense really. …I think the researchers are forgetting one crucial aspect… That is called “Professionalism or the Sense of Duty”… A person with mindfulness; or the one who is engaged in meditation; and therefore more spiritually elevated, may not be seen as lusting after “money and power” but he would sure to deliver better results from the “elevated and higher sense of Duty towards his/her profession.” … No? … I guess the point is the person who is “more mindful and spiritually engaged” is a priceless asset to any business… I would strongly recommend all to see the movie “Intern” and watch the character played by “Robert the Nero Visa-vie that of Anne Hathaway” to understand how mindfulness can be absolutely priceless… Bottom line, such “mindful folks are very rare” to be found… But if one can find them, hold on to them… The management must learn to submit to them and make the best use of them for their organizations… But the real question does the management have similar “mindful leaders” at all in their lot like say Steve Jobs for instance?? … It “takes one” to “know one” really… No? 
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Professionalism only works if you are in a profession that has worth beyond increasing the value of the company you work for, rather than just a job to pay for your overpriced house working for a company that extracts more from society than it gives.
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One of my design clients publishes a great number of audiobook titles on mindfulness meditation and I’d say 90% of them involve cover art of zen gardens, placid pools of water, brilliant sunrises, and calm beaches. I can see how being in a stressful, ugly office setting and listening to that during your break would make you hate the ugly office quite a lot more.
I’ve always been utterly baffled at how angry ‘hardcore Christians’ get about the idea of sitting down and relaxing and clearing your mind and breathing for fifteen minutes. What about any of that would seem anti-Christian?
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Everything I’ve read about ‘mindfulness mediation’ makes me think “People have to be taught how to do that? No wonder the world’s so fucked up”.
And no, I’ve never been particularly motivated at work. What’s the point?
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Most devout Christians in such a situation probably think to themselves, “Oh, I can just pray instead.” We’re only hearing from the minority who is looking for something to complain about.
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Let’s try this the other way: Those who are more likely to realize the futility of their jobs are more likely to practice mindfulness meditation.
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Whoa there! No need to meditate for any amount of time whatsoever to understand that your “job” is pretty much BS.
“Which means that every single day that you see me, it’s the worst day of my life.”
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Do you happen to have any of those studies? I’m not against meditation (though I seem to recall some studies that found, at least for some benefits, that meditation was about as effective as, say, playing video games, if you happen to be the kind of person who really likes video games) but I feel like most studies are going to have issues with not being able to afford either a large sample size, or proper training. After all, the more training you do, the more the time and cost goes up. And you have to use people new to meditation to avoid selection bias.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the literature on meditation is driven by poor sample sizes and questionable mathematics leading to an increased false alarm rate, with studies that fail to show an effect simply getting dumped in a file drawer, never to see the light of day again. A lot of research is like that, sadly. That doesn’t mean there isn’t an effect of mindfulness, or that your criticisms of this study are invalid, but it does mean that it’s hard to state that this study is wrong because it goes against the prior literature without examining the merits of that literature.
Looks like, for this study, they were able to take a sample and randomly assign them to meditation and non-meditation groups, so this design may actually be able to make statements about causation, rather than just correlation.
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Mankoi: Lots of studies show that the practice of mindfulness gradually increases one’s ability to let go thoughts (that is, mindfulness considerably reduce the habit of rumination). If you wish to obtain these studies (there are too many studies to list here), just run a search using the key words “mindfulness” and “rumination.”
When there is less rumination (i.e., constant mind-chatter regarding regrets, worries, etc.), one can engage in life and focus on the present moment and do what wants to do in life (i.e., be motivated). But developing mindfulness takes time and definitely cannot be done in one session of meditation.
A recent study showed that mindfulness also protects against suicidal desire in conditions of heightened risk and adversity by enhancing one’s orientation towards a life worth living (i.e., being motivated). Here’s the reference: Mind full of life: Does mindfulness confer resilience to suicide by increasing zest for life? (2018). Journal of affective disorders, 226, 100-107.
Below are a few review articles on mindfulness. The very last study included a combined total of 8683 participants consisting of different patient categories as well as healthy adults and children.
Dispositional Mindfulness and Psychological Health: a Systematic Review. Tomlinson, et al. (2018). 9(1):23-43.
Rodrigues, M. F., et al. (2017). Mindfulness in mood and anxiety disorders: a review of the literature. Trends in psychiatry and Psychotherapy, 39(3), 207-215.
Creswell, J. D. (2017). Mindfulness interventions. Annual Review of Psychology, 68, 491–516.
Gotink, R.A., et al. (2015). Standardised mindfulness-based interventions in healthcare: An overview of systematic reviews and metaanalyses of RCTs. PloS One, 10(4).
(I can write more and even provide more references if needed.)
Mankoi: There are numerous well-conducted randomized studies in mindfulness (too many to list here). Perhaps you need to do a search in a database. Also, please see the review articles I listed in my earlier comment.
Not sure what your point on this one is. I said this study looks like it is randomized, and thus hecep’s comment, where he’s implied inverse causation, isn’t supported by these results, because random assignment allows for one to make causal statements.
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