Simple Techniques for Stress Management

In today’s hectic, demanding and stress-filled world, we are called to find creative solutions to complex problems in our professional and personal lives. The answers we seek already exist within, we just need to set aside time to access them. Through practices in breathing and meditation, learn to tap into your inner silence and wisdom, where an infinite number of solutions can arise.

Doctors are increasingly citing stress as a major contributing factor to most illnesses. The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine has indicated that Health care expenditures are nearly 50% greater for workers who report high levels of stress.

Our Chopra Center Master Educators will guide your group step-by-step through quick and easy to learn techniques for reducing and managing stress. Medical research now proves that meditation is the #1 Stress management technique. The cornerstone of all of Dr. Chopra’s wellness programs is the practice of meditation. Even though meditation should not be considered a cure by itself, scientific research has proven it to be beneficial for a wide range of health problems.

Those benefits include:

• Increased employee satisfaction and productivity
• A sharpened intellect
• Experience of greater energy and creativity
• Improvement of overall health: lower blood pressure, decreased insomnia, enhanced functioning of immune system and all systems of the body, greater vitality and mental health

As stress is greatly eliminated through Meditation, our minds and bodies begin to function with maximum effectiveness, creating health, vitality and happiness.

  De-Stress at Your Desk: Sit, Breathe, Move

Learn a seated form of yoga excellent for stretching out tight backs, relieving sore necks and moving fatigued, sedentary bodies without ever getting out of your chair. These beginner-friendly movement and breath awareness techniques will energize the body and clear the busy mind.

Sitting for prolonged periods of time has been clinically proven to create strain on the neck and body that can lead to chronic health conditions and back problems. Fatigue is one of the most serious health-related problems in the workplace impacting on-the-job accidents, absenteeism and lowered productivity. According to a study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, fatigue carries an overall estimated cost of more than $136 billion per year in health-related lost productivity.

In addition to learning Simple Techniques for Stress Management, our Chopra Center Educators will guide your group through quick and simple de-stressing exercises for moving and stretching fatigued and sedentary bodies in our Sit, Breathe, Move program.

These simple and practical techniques help to:

• Improve strength, balance and flexibility in mind and body
• Reduce stress and promotes peace
• Contribute to greater well-being
• Can be practiced anywhere, anytime

  Tools for Work-Life Balance

Optimize your healthy vibrant nature by discovering your unique mind-body type and how your reactions to stress can affect your overall wellbeing. Easily identify and address the symptoms of imbalance before the onset of upset, illness or disease, and make conscientious choices to enhance balance in your life.

Research shows that Work-Life Balance Programs lead to increases in performance, productivity and positive returns on investment. According to St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Co, problems at work are more strongly associated with health complaints than are any other life stressor-more so than even financial problems or family matters. According to NIOSH (The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health), a healthy organization is defined as one that has low rates of illness, injury, and disability in its workforce and is also competitive in the marketplace. Investing in tools for work-life balance will positively benefit your bottom line.

In this program, your group will be introduced to advanced insights on how to sustain and maintain work-life balance by learning:

• Simple and effective techniques for Stress Management
• Natural self-healing practices from Ancient Wisdom Traditions
• How to easily identify and address the symptoms of imbalance before the onset of illness and disease

Application of this knowledge:

• Increases productivity and satisfaction at work
• Decreases staff absenteeism and sick leave
• Reduces stress and improves overall well-being
• Enriches staff quality of work/life balance
• Invites peace and happiness

  Purposeful Communication

Develop the skills needed to support improved communication, relationship building and conflict resolution in the workplace and at home. Learn how to make observations without judgment, state your feelings from a place of empowerment and make clear, measureable requests that get your needs met.

Your group will learn enhanced Communication Skills for the workplace. Purposeful Communication is the ability to communicate and negotiate in ways that promote understanding, mutual respect, increased productivity, compassion, and collaboration. For example, public confrontations are awkward and stressful for those directly involved, as well as for the co-workers who have to witness them. This includes the exchange of seemingly insignificant and inconsiderate words and deeds that violate conventional norms or workplace conduct. Such confrontations cause employees to become less engaged, de-motivated, apathetic and even angry, which leads to losses in productivity and efficiency, and of course, profitability. According to Banishing Burnout by M.P.Leiter and C. Maslach, the annual cost of job stress alone due to incivility at U.S. corporations is $300 billion.

Purposeful Communication will teach employees to:

• Use observations instead of interpretations when describing a situation to communicate in a clear and non-emotional way
• Foster strong working relationships to deliver positive results for increasing productivity--- the bottom line
• Create practical ways to manage conflict and enhance team effectiveness
• Understand the true meaning of integrity and how to exhibit it in all aspects of your life
• Articulate clear measureable requests that get your needs met.

Application of these communication skills will:

• Enhance interpersonal relationships within your organization and with your professional liaisons
• Encourage speaking confidently and openly in meetings
• Greatly improve customer service & employer-employee relations
• Promote co-operation and teamwork within and across organizational boundaries

  Nutrition: Food as Medicine

Provide healthy lifestyle tools during your group’s lunch break, and learn how simple it is to improve overall wellbeing by making mindful choices with food selection and eating habits. Our ability to be healthy, energetic, focused and balanced is directly proportional to the foods that we consume. A nutritious, vegetarian three-course meal is provided.

Next to breathing, eating is our most vital bodily function. Our ability to be healthy, energetic, focused and balanced is directly proportional to the foods that we consume.

According to Gallup (a research-based performance-management consulting company) there are approximately 3 million more obese adult Americans now than there were at the beginning of 2008. The unanimous consensus of the medical community is that spending 40 hours a week at an office desk is a primary contributor to weight gain. A 2010 study in The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine estimated that obesity among full-time employees in the U.S. costs employers more than $73 billion per year.

Provide healthy lifestyle tools during your group’s lunch break by incorporating our Lunch & Learn package. Pre-select from healthy and delicious Chopra Center event menu options and experience how eating vegetarian cuisine can be delicious and enjoyable.

Your group will:

• Learn how simple it is to increase mental, emotional, and physical well-being by making Conscientious Choices with food selection and eating habits.
• Be introduced to key principles for eating in a way that is healthy, balanced, and delicious to receive the full range of nutrients required to sustain your best energy and health, and to manage weight naturally

• Experience Simple “Eating Awareness Techniques” to ensure optimal digestion.