I am not a trendsetter. I am not even a trend follower. I've been known to quit listening to bands once they become popular and although it's 2018, I still haven't gotten over my fear of Facebook. There is one trend, however, that has completely captivated me: mindfulness through meditation. I understand that the vast majority of our readers are Type A meeting planners, executives and generally speaking, people that might not picture themselves taking a 10-minute break in the busy association world to seek their Zen. But before commencing the hippie talk requisite eye roll, at least consider the legitimacy of this trend.
At first I felt silly, sitting in my chair trying to focus and listen to my own breath. I know what breathing sounds like and I also know I have 20 more emails that just flooded in. Yet once I started consistently practicing I was thoroughly surprised at the positive impact it beget. I learned techniques to physically respond better to anxiety and most importantly recognized that it's a ten-minute investment into me. Not going to lie; sitting quietly breathing and focusing on my physical and mental being without the computer screen, music, and buzzing phone at first felt like a lifetime. But then I thought about how quickly ten minutes goes by during the workday or when checking off evening chores and I realized, it's so little in the overall scheme of the day yet offers wide-ranging reward.
Training your body with meditation techniques can be useful in those stressful work moments. Recall the tension felt in a board meeting when a highly contentious topic comes up for debate; the moment when the keynote speaker's presentation freezes on screen; the seemingly never-ending employee meeting that is filled with trivial complaints. These are opportunities to take a deep breath, re-focus, reduce nervous reactions and avoid long-term internalization of stress. It's about realizing you can't control what happens but you can control your reaction to it.
And for those science-minded folk that skimmed through the first few paragraphs, I challenge you to do your research. There are scientific studies that prove that meditation helps reduce fatigue, anxiety and depression and also improves cognition and concentration. Invest the time to teach yourself how to better handle and adjust to life's curveballs. Speaking as a Type A with hippie tendencies, it's so worth it.