Helping employees lean to deal with stress can pay off for companies.

Having too much stress, and not knowing how to handle it, can negatively affect even the most dedicated employee.  And many are affected, because juggling the needs of both home and work can at times be overwhelming, and now the nation's economic problems pile on even more anxiety.

What to do?

The trick, says a brain expert, is for companies to give their employees the tools they need to retrain their minds - methods that will help them learn to manage stress in a healthy way. If not, the expert says, companies will feel the pain, in terms of job dissatisfaction, loss of productivity and even depression.
 
Patt Lind-Kyle, author of Heal Your Mind, Rewire Your Brain: Applying the Exciting New Science of Brain Synchrony for Creativity, Peace and Presence (Energy Psychology Press, 2009), says that chronic stress can be crippling. However, teaching basic mind-training techniques to employees can energize workers to be more innovative and therefore contribute more to the workplace.
 
“Even during the best of times, America is a nation of stressed-out, anxious and distracted people - and those high levels of stress have a major impact not only on individuals’ personal lives, but on the overall performances of their companies,” she says.
 
Given the current economic crisis, stress can come from employees worrying about the threat of being laid off, in addition to everyday work issues, such as co-worker conflict, tight deadlines and longer work days to compensate for former employees who have already lost their jobs.
 
Meditative training, Lind-Kyle says, helps employees identify and remove unconscious thoughts and reactions that cause stress. Clearing your employees’ minds of all extraneous “mental dialogues (conversations and arguments one has with oneself)” will help them be more productive and creative. It will also assist employees in streamlining their way of thinking to get the most positive results.
 
“The brain likes direction and purpose,” the author says. “Every person on your team needs to learn to hone their concentration to a fine point. Once your team is able to combat the racing thoughts that speed their lives and distort focus, they’ll be able to focus more easily on the tasks in front of them and deal more effectively with challenges.”
 
The key to having loyal and productive employees is to ensure that they are happy, Lind-Kyle says. The mind-training techniques enables them to be more fulfilled and focused, which leads to an improved balance between work and home life.
 
When a person is in the “flow,” he or she is mentally engaged, focused and immersed in what he or she is doing. Based on science, flow moves in the direction of the prefrontal lobes, the area of self-awareness that gathers meaning in the external world, the author says.
 
Being in a state of awareness is a solid place to be, Lind-Kyle says, because it is usually accompanied by a sense of vitality and joy.
 
“When information is moving through their brains in an optimal manner,” she says, “your employees will have flexible responses, be rational in their thinking, self-aware and reflective in their thought processes, intentional in their communication and positive in their attitudes.”
 
In addition to being an author, Lind-Kyle is a therapist, speaker, trainer and consultant. A former Foothill College professor, she is the founder of a learning-assessment company that applies neuro-monitoring tools for stress management, health and peak performance. For more information, visit her Web site at www.healrewireyourbrain.com.