The pressures at work can be endless. From meeting deadlines, dealing with clients and difficult colleagues, to overtime issues, pressure to perform as well as making the most of one’s skills, talents, experience. How can you stand out from the crowd and beat competition when it comes to that promotion? How do you know when to take risks that will pay off, how to enhance your creative skills and have a more meaningful work day?

Bloomerberg Businessweek Magazine says that, “Meditation enhances the qualities companies need most from their knowledge workers: increased brain-wave activity, enhanced intuition, better concentration, and the alleviation of the kinds of aches and pains that plague employees most."

Meditation has been around for thousands of years because it works.  Let us see how it benefits the life of working individuals:

For most employees, managers, supervisors and even CEO’s, there’s one thing that they all have in common – stress. This sort of stress when unchecked, can fill an office with burnt-out people consumed with managing anger, dread and anxiety instead of the company's business.

According to the American Institute of Stress, this problem currently costs the United States “over $300 billion annually due to increased absenteeism, employee turnover, diminished productivity, medical, legal, and insurance expenses, and Workers' Compensation payments.” Evidently workplace stress can have costly side effects and is a threat to the balance sheet. It also diminishes performance over time.

While there is no way to totally avoid stress from the workplace, we can always work towards reducing it and there is no better antidote to stress than the practice of meditiation. It bolsters ones resilience and “what’s good for the spirit is good for the bottomline”, believes McKinsey partner – Michael Rennie. Numerous studies have demonstrated the relaxation effects of meditation and its ability to face work challenges. P&G’s CEO A.G. Lafley says, “You can not out-work a problem, you have to out-meditation it.”

Workplace pressures can cause a range of physical and emotional illness. In today’s fast-paced business world, people are often exhausted, which harms their health. According to the World Health Organization, mental ill health accounts for 20% of the burden of disease in Europe.

Meditation, however, allows one to effectively deal with stress by soothing the nervous system. It improves the overall health by reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke, clinical depression, and a myriad of other conditions that also cause employee absenteeism. A regular practice of meditation has also been linked to reduction in the number of sick leaves taken by employees and in the rise of their general well being.

The secret to great business leaders’ success is using intuition when making business decisions. What do we mean by intuition? In simple words, it is the ability to KNOW – beyond data, reason and logic. It is something that is available to everyone but not many can access and cultivate this ability. Our belief in the logical mind is so strong that we ignore the power of the bigger mind. However, a meditator will recognize the voice of the big mind - the gut, which saves us often.

The ancient technique of meditation is an effortless tool that enhances ones intuitive skills along with observation and perception.  Enhanced intuitive ability leads to making superior and holistic decisions at any management level.

When people are stressed at work, tempers flare and relationships can sour, leading to less co-operative and less cohesive teams. The practice of meditation relaxes you and calms the mind. It develops harmony at the level of the mind and emotions, which contributes to higher staff morale and happier and healthier work relations. And a healthy and harmonious workforce is always a productive workforce.