At last week’s employee wellbeing forum, we heard from Associate Professor Craig Hassed OAM, who shared some tips on using mindfulness to improve our wellbeing and reach peak performance.
Craig has been working with the Faculty of Medicine at Monash University since 1989 and has developed and integrated the world-first mindfulness-based healthy lifestyle course into the Monash Medical Curriculum.
During his presentation, Craig highlighted how difficult it is to be mindful and present in day-to-day life due to distractions such as technology.
“The online world has been so helpful during COVID-19. However, even pre-COVID-19, the online world has been dominating life. As a result of this, our attention capacities, memory processes and social cognition are being affected through excessive internet use.”
Craig offered some ways in which you can practice mindfulness through formal and informal practice.
Formal practice involves sitting in a chair, being mindful for a few minutes. This practice exercises the attention circuits in our brain and allows us to enjoy the benefits of mindfulness for the remainder of the day.
Informal practice relates to being mindful in our day-to-day life. This can include taking 30 seconds while completing a task to allow our full attention to be placed on what is happening in the present moment.
By engaging in these practices, you can train two essential things: attention and attitude.
“Prioritising where your attention needs to be can affect your attitude, and this can help with things such as openness, curiosity and acceptance”.
By partaking in a mindfulness program, you can make improvements on:
- Burnout and emotional exhaustion
- Empathy and responsiveness
- Attention control
- Mood
- Memory
- Regulation of stress response
If you are interested in learning mindfulness techniques to reduce stress and improve your wellbeing and work performance, there is a free online course through Monash University. This course is presented by Assoc. Prof. Craig Hassed and Dr Richard Chambers.
If you would like to watch Craig’s presentation at the employee wellbeing forum, you can watch it here. You can also download his presentation slides here.
Approved by Karen Lowe.