Want to improve your job performance? Try meditating.
A study published in 2015 examined the influence of meditation on job performance in adults in living in Japan.
“Many previous studies have shown that meditation practice has a positive impact on cognitive and non-cognitive functioning, which are related to job performance. The aims of this study were to (1) estimate the prevalence of meditation practice, (2) identify the characteristics of individuals who practice meditation, and (3) examine the association between meditation practice and job performance.”
The findings were quite powerful.
“The results of Study 1* indicated that 3.9% of persons surveyed practiced meditation; these individuals were younger and had a higher education, higher household income, higher stress level, and lower body mass index than those who did not practice meditation. The results of Study 2** indicated that meditation practice was significantly predictive of work engagement, subjective job performance, and job satisfaction, even after adjusting for independent variables.”
The study went on to reveal that “higher emotional intelligence has been linked to better job performance, as has motivation, which can be fostered by vocational interest and these factors are positively associated with job performance…”
One promising intervention that may improve individual job performance is meditation practice.
The Results
The study found that “those individuals who practiced meditation reported significantly higher education levels and higher household incomes. The two groups also differed in gender; specifically, the proportion of female participants was higher in the group that practiced meditation (59.5%) than in the group that did not practice meditation (32.0%).”
It went on to say that the “findings indicate that meditation practice may have positive effects on enhancing multiple dimensions of job performance, including work engagement, subjective job performance, and job satisfaction.”
Why? Science.
“There is increasing evidence from the field of neuroscience suggesting that meditation practice can enhance employees’ job performance via its influence on the autonomic nervous and endocrine systems. Therefore, meditation practice may be an effective intervention strategy to improve job performance in the business world.”
Need to see it to believe it? The entire study can be found here.
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NOTES:
Registrants who indicated that they were students, unemployed, clergy, or instructors were excluded from the analysis. Students and unemployed were excluded since the aim was to examine meditation in businesspeople.
*Study 1 was a cross-sectional study of adults in Japan that estimated the prevalence of meditation practice and the background characteristics of those that practice.
**Study 2 was a cross-sectional study of Japanese business persons that examined the associations between the frequency of meditation practice and scores on the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, the World Health Organization Health and Work Performance Questionnaire, and a job satisfaction scale; demographic characteristics and other behavioral risk factors were controlled for in these analyses.