Anxiety, does it get the best
of you? Are you missing work to de-stress? Meditation can offer a different way of dealing with stress and/or anxiety.
Mental illness not only
affects our social interactions, but also our function in the workplace. Both aspects
play important factors on the American economy. Work place performance is
measured by the number of missed days from work and the observation of
decreased job performance. Research is being done on potential treatments to
improve the occupational performance with people suffering from mental illness
and anxiety. Such research was done in a study performed by Elizabeth Hoge and
her coworkers.
Not only is anxiety
associated with reduced time at work, but, in the long term it is associated
with decreased employment patterns. Decreased work production is indirectly
correlated with increased time in the doctor’s office. These two factors go
hand in hand when talking about anxiety disorders.
Treatment that is most
commonly used to resolve anxiety disorders involve medications and/or
psychotherapy. This study wanted to examine an alternative approach, the use of
mindfulness meditation as a different treatment for Generalized Anxiety
Disorder also known as GAD. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is a popular
training program that has been shown to reduce stress and improve sleep quality
in working adults.
There were 57 individuals
around the age of 39 with GAD. In an eight week clinical trial they were
randomly selected for either the mindfulness-based stress reduction or an
attention control class. The amount of days that were missed, partial and full,
as well as doctors office visits were observed before and after treatment. The
results were, the individuals that received the mindfulness meditation showed
improved job performance and work engagement. Those individuals also
experienced job satisfaction and less emotional exhaustion.
The one group received
training in practices that cultivated the awareness of the individual’s
internal present-moment experiences with acceptance and non-judgement. The
other group, that was randomly selected, received stress management education
for the eight weeks instead of mindfulness training.
A World Health Performance
and work questionnaire was given out to allow the participants to self-report
their work place performance. This was compared to absenteeism which used to
compare their results to critical performance in the workplace.
The individuals assessed
varied greatly by race, gender and age. The results indicated that, partial
days missed of work were greatly decreased by the group that was given the
mindfulness meditation, compared to an increase in the number of work days
missed in the control group. However, the individuals that practiced more
mindfulness meditation at home had fewer mental health professional visits and
fewer days missed from work. Both of those findings suggested that mindfulness
meditation had a beneficial effect on occupational functioning.
The researchers also found a
greater reduction in partial work days missed in the mindfulness group compared
to the control group that was studied. There was probable reason to believe
that mindfulness meditation reduced anxiety symptoms, which decreased the need
for mental health professional visits. This was matched to the belief that the
same individuals had an improvement in their productivity and were not coming
late or leaving early.
The long term effects of the
meditation were a decrease in anxiety, which decreased the healthcare visits.
Meditation has a different
effect for the health care side. Although, it improves the individual,
meditation actually effects the health care industry in a bad way by taking
away clients. There was a decrease in the clinical encounters by about 42%
compared to pre-treatment.
This means that the health
care loses money, which eventually leads to the economy being affected. The
decrease in health care and the clinical visits is indirectly associated with
the increase of the individual’s self- care.
This study proves a certain
point, that something that is not tactical can, and has the power to heal
physical problems. This experiment helps create a foot in the door to the start
meaningful-quantitative research into holistic remedies that have been lacking.
In conclusion, with my own personal experience with meditation, I believe it
works wonders. The meditation creates an opportunity to grow within your own
thoughts, interpreting and applying the knowledge to each individual’s lives.
Article: Read about it here
References
Hoge, E. A., Guidos, B. M.,
Mete, M., Bui, E., Pollack, M. H., Simon, N. M., & Dutton, M. A. (2017).
Effects of mindfulness meditation on occupational functioning and health care
utilization in individuals with anxiety. Psychosomatic Research, 95, 7-11.
Retrieved April 16, 2017, from
http://www.jpsychores.com/article/S0022-3999(17)30066-1/fulltext
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[Digital image]. (2011). Retrieved April 16, 2017, from
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