Health News: Top Stories

''Meditation to Boost Morale, Performance and Creativity in Business''
by Dr Norman Rosenthal

The Huffington Post Translate This Article
23 February 2014

Ever wonder what it would be like to work in a place where everyone was extremely focused, creative, and productive—and not stressed out?

In a recent Huffington Post article, excerpts of which are featured below, Dr. Norman Rosenthal discusses how our society can achieve this kind of happy, energetic, creative business environment. Dr. Rosenthal is a world-renowned psychiatrist, researcher and best-selling author who first described seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and pioneered the use of light therapy as a treatment during his twenty years at the National Institute of Mental Health. He's written or co-authored over 200 scholarly articles and eight popular books, and has been listed as one of the Best Doctors in America and as one of the country's top psychiatrists.

———————

As I browsed the offerings in an airport bookstore recently, I was astonished at the number of titles geared to improving business performance. . . . Now we like to subscribe to a myth—that our brains can function at peak levels at all times. That simply isn't true. . . .

We are not geared to ''live on adrenaline.'' In fact, the biggest cause of long-term sick leave, work stress, has been called the ''The Black Death of the 21st Century''. . . . Peak performance requires peak experiences, which occur routinely among people who practice Transcendental Meditation.

According to Ray Dalio, longstanding TMer and founder of Bridgewater, the biggest hedge fund in the world, ''Meditation helped my creativity. I find that creative ideas don't come from working hard at them in one's conscious state. Instead, they come when I'm very relaxed. They pass through my brain and I grab them''. . . .

But the greatest value of TM in boosting creativity and performance comes not from the sporadic flashes of insight that occur during meditation sessions. Rather, as people meditate regularly, twice a day, the transcendent shifts in consciousness move from the meditative sessions into their daily lives. A sense of calm effectiveness enters the stressed mind, and slows down thoughts and physical responses in a way that leads to more efficient processing and innovative—even unexpected—solutions.

To quote Dalio again, TM has helped him feel ''in a calm, clear-headed state so that when challenges come at you, you can deal with them like a ninja—in a calm thoughtful way. When you're centered, your emotions are not hijacking you.''

. . . . I am still astonished that this ancient technique can do many things that elude even our most sophisticated drugs. It has often occurred to me that if TM could be put into a capsule and marketed like a pharmaceutical, it would be a billion dollar blockbuster.

Click here to read the full article online at TheHuffingtonPost.com.

———————
This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and the David Lynch Foundation (DLF), a nonprofit organization that brings Transcendental Meditation to at-risk communities. On Feb. 11, DLF hosted 'Meditation, Creativity, Performance and Stress,' a panel discussion led by Andrew Ross Sorkin featuring Ray Dalio, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Mario Batali. To read more about the event, click here.

Related posts:

1. Wired for Success—Can TM improve performance?
2. Executives Who Swear By Meditation—Business Insider
3. A Neurologist on the Origins of Creativity in the Brain
4. ''Daily Reset—A Look Into Transcendental Meditation''
5. ''The Totally Stressed-Out Man's Guide to Meditation''

SOURCE: Transcendental Meditation Blog

Copyright © 2014 Maharishi Foundation USA

Translation software is not perfect; however if you would like to try it, you can translate this page using:

(Google)
(Altavista babelfish)