How Meditation Increased My Productivity at the Office

By Tom Murray | Managing Director, Agency

Meditation. That thing that often times people think only crazy, spiritual people do. There has been this negative stigma around meditation for many years and I hope that my success with it can help people see the positives to be gained from.

Meditation has become more popular over the past few years, with 14% of Americans saying that they meditated in 2017, compared to just 4% in 2012.One of the most popular meditation apps, Calm, recently raised $88 million dollars and are now valued at over $1 Billion dollars. The stigma is changing, but there are many that have not experienced the positive effects of meditating.

Having started meditation around a month ago, I’ve already seen positive effects that are just beginning, and getting greater each day. I’ve noticed that I’ve fallen asleep much faster than usual, all tracked by my Oura ring sleep tracker. The science backs it up as well. Meditation can help people fall asleep 2x as fast (16 minutes vs 33 minutes) in various studies. For those that say they don’t have time to mediate, I’ve just saved you about 15 minutes, so you have no excuse! By getting a good night sleep, I feel recharged in the morning, ready to tackle the day. I get into the office earlier than normal, which allows me to be more productive, as the brain is able to operate at a higher level in the morning compared to the afternoon.

The other benefits of meditation are countless, here’s just a few:

• Reduced stress
• Reduced anxiety
• Enhanced self-awareness
• Higher attention span
• Lower blood pressure (mine is already down 20 points in just a month!)

My original goal was to meditate two times a week, for five minutes a day, which comes out to 40 minutes per month. A very small goal, but I quickly realized that the positive effects were worth an increased time investment. I now meditate two times a day for 10-15 minutes in each session, and haven’t missed a day since starting. Having reached 50 sessions and 500 minutes meditated, I can truly say that meditation has helped me increase my productivity and helped me stay in a place of calm, especially in the heat of the moment for the inevitable flare-ups that happen on any given work day. I recommend the Headspace app, but there are many of them out there, as well as free YouTube videos as well!