The efficacy of mindfulness has been extensively researched in multiple clinical domains. The Aikens Approach is the first to create a mindfulness program that is specialized to business and scalable for widespread use.
What It Is
Mindfulness can be defined as the learned ability to pay attention:
- On purpose
- In the present moment
- Non-judgmentally
- To better identify and solve problems in the internal and external environment
Mindfulness is also the learned ability to identify:
- Thought patterns
- Stress and negative emotions
- Physical reactions
- Objectively and systematically
What It Does for Health
- The health benefits of mindfulness have been widely documented for decades in studies involving stress, fatigue, sleep, pain, obesity, immune function and more.
- Mindfulness is clinically shown to have therapeutic effects on multiple stress–related medical conditions, including psoriasis, fibromyalgia, type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic low back, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and insomnia.
- Because of its clinical effectiveness, mindfulness is used to help treat depression, eating disorders, chronic pain, anxiety and addiction. It has recently been shown to potentially slow down the rate of cellular aging.
- Results of studies using MRI and EEG technology show that participation in mindfulness training is associated with increases in grey matter concentration in brain regions involved with learning and memory processes, emotional regulation, self-referential processing and perspective.
What It Does for Performance
- Mindfulness has been shown to improve conflict handling, communication, creativity, innovation, relationship quality and customer orientation.
- Research at the University of Michigan shows that highly reliable organizations, such as military battleships and nuclear power plants, operate with well-developed levels of organizational mindfulness, making them able to perform optimally in stressful environments that are rich with the potential for error.
- Other researchers have found associations between mindfulness in organizations and improved product failure management, quality management and reliability, marketing and relationship strategy, task performance, service quality and resonate leadership.
- In numerous sports, mindfulness has been shown to improve athletic performance by increasing focus and concentration.