Workplace stress is felt by everyone, but for doctors and nurses, the stress can be nearly debilitating. Interestingly, while technology continues to advance medicine, it never seems to minimize the amount of anxiety, exhaustion, and pressure felt by those implementing it.

To reduce stress levels for doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff, medical facilities around the country are launching mindfulness programs. These courses teach a range of techniques that include elements of square breathing, yoga, meditation, and positive self-talk.

Why Implement Mindfulness?

Employers everywhere are seeing employee burnout. For this reason, tech startups, Fortune 500 companies, and hospitals alike are offering mindfulness programs to reduce turnover, boost the wellbeing of their workers (physically and emotionally), and of course, reduce their bottom line.

In fact, the American Institute of Stress (AIS) estimates that the side effects of stress cost U.S. industries $300 billion annually. Other research on mindfulness in the workplace suggests that if mindfulness programs were adopted nationally and implemented properly, U.S. industries would save nearly $400 billion in healthcare costs alone.

But what exactly is happening to employees that is costing businesses, corporations, and health care facilities so much money? While it’s widely accepted that chronic stress has adverse health effects, companies don’t always recognize the effect it has on their bottom line. According to the AIS, the costly side effects of stress include, but are not limited to:

Absenteeism
Accidents
Diminished productivity
Direct medical, legal, and insurance costs
Employee turnover
Workers’ compensation awards as well as tort and FELA judgments

It Takes Practice

Mindfulness, like most skills, takes time and practice. Medication, yoga, qigong, tai chi, and square breathing (among many other methods of relaxation) aren’t silver-bullet methods of achieving a clear head. However, once employees are proficient at implementing these mindfulness strategies, it can drastically improvement conditions both in and out of the workplace.

**Does it Really Work?**

It’s understandable that CEOs, company executives, and even employees would be skeptical of mindfulness. After all, with mindfulness, there is no cutting-edge technology, no pioneering medicines, and no complex equipment needed—so how could this possibly make a difference?

Probably one of the most compelling pieces of evidence comes from actual brain scans of 155 adults who participated in an eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) training program for a group of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh. The images from the MRI actually indicated neuroplastic alterations in the brain. More specifically, the fight or flight portion of the brain, the amygdala, shrunk while the prefrontal cortex actually became denser.

In additional to these physiological changes to the brain, empirical evidence from the American Psychological Association (APA) supports many of the once, more dubious benefits of mindfulness. The APA found that mindfulness correlates directly with:

Mindfulness in Medicine

Mindfulness in the medical field has particular benefits due to the chronic everyday stress levels that physicians, nurses, and many other healthcare workers feel. In a study by the University of Virginia School of Medicine, scientists determined that a MBSR course was associated with significant improvements in burnout rates and mental well-being for a broad range of healthcare providers including physicians, nurses, psychologists, and social workers.

In conjunction with reducing burnout rates, the Department of Psychology at Northeastern University found that meditation has a direct correlation with increased compassion from health care providers to their patients. Moreover, in a Johns Hopkins University observational study of 45 clinicians care for patients infected with HIV, researchers’ findings suggest that physician engagement and patient-centered communication improved with mindfulness.

Last, in a study conducted by the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, doctors concluded that MBSR effectively reduced self-reported measures of stress and increased daily spiritual experiences of employees in an academic health-care setting.

The Savings on Saving an Employee

While at times, it’s difficult to get exact return on investment (ROI) from hospitals, clinics, and other health care facilities that implement mindfulness, it is possible to estimate the potential savings from a quality employee who quits their job.

In an extensive 22-data point scenario by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), statisticians found that, between direct costs and lost productivity, the cost of losing one nurse was $41,000. Moreover, if an organization loses 200 nurses a year, the annual cost of nurse turnover is a staggering $8,200,000. What’s more shocking is that this may actually be a conservative estimate, seeing as how some of SHRM’s figures are dated.

Mindful of Your Needs

At Mindfulness Strategies, we’re aware that your organization may not have the time to participate in extensive eight-week MBSR courses and the expectation of a daily practice is not always realistic. However, in a recent study by Smilow Cancer Hospital and Oncology Nursing News, the results of an abbreviated MBSR course design for busy healthcare professionals found that even a condensed mindfulness program can be exceptionally “effective in decreasing perceived stress, and, to a lesser degree, in decreasing compassion fatigue and burnout.”

If you’re ready to take the next step to improve the mental and physical improving the wellbeing of your employees, let Mindfulness Strategies design a MBSR program that’s built around your organization’s needs. Click the button below to contact us today.

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Learn More About Mindfulness In The Workplace

Mindfulness for Physicians, Nurses, and Other Healthcare Workers