Meditation Awareness Training (MAT) for Work-related Wellbeing and Job Performance: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Due to its potential to concurrently improve work-related wellbeing (WRW) and job performance, occupational stakeholders are becoming increasingly interested in the applications of meditation. The present study conducted the first randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of meditation on outcomes relating to both WRW and job performance. Office-based middle-hierarchy managers (n = 152) received an eight-week meditation intervention (Meditation Awareness Training; MAT) or an active control intervention. MAT participants demonstrated significant and sustainable improvements (with strong effect sizes) over control-group participants in levels of work-related stress, job satisfaction, psychological distress, and employer-rated job performance. There are a number of novel implications: (i) meditation can effectuate a perceptual shift in how employees experience their work and psychological environment and may thus constitute a cost-effective WRW intervention, (ii) meditation-based (i.e., present-moment-focussed) working styles may be more effective than goal-based (i.e., future-orientated) working styles, and (iii) meditation may reduce the separation made by employees between their own interests and those of the organizations they work for

Mindfulness and compassion as foundations for well-being

It is widely agreed that well-being is the ultimate goal or at least a primary aim of policy, but what do we know about how to increase well-being? A large body of evidence has accumulated about many and diverse skills and processes that lead to greater subjective well-being. This chapter explores the idea that two mental practices might underlie well-being, and many of the specific skills that form the backbone of positive psychology and other well-being interventions. They are mindfulness and compassion, which are increasingly being used as secular interventions. Evidence from behavioural and neuroscience investigations broadly supports the theoretical accounts of their mode of action. The chapter concludes that not only is there strong and growing evidence of the well-being benefits of mindfulness and compassion training, but that the skills and processes they engender are so fundamental, that learning them is likely to magnify the benefits of other programs designed to enhance well-being