Do you also feel that you do not have time for workouts? Are you also caught up at your workplace? Is stress hovering in your mind? Or do you find it challenging to maintain a work-life balance?
If the answer to the above questions is YES, then the blog is for YOU. Read and share it with your bosses and ask them to start a corporate wellness program.
In a life of poor work-life balance and high-stress levels, keeping oneself sane and healthy becomes daunting. Nowadays, every organization looks for a healthy and happy employee, thus ensuring employee wellness and corporate wellness programs.
Since corporate wellness’s inception, the meaning has changed over the years. While earlier such programs were looked upon as good value-addition, they are now considered strategic imperative.
So, if you also want to know about corporate yoga and everything related, read the blog and immerse yourself in an ocean of corporate yoga.
Let us get started!
What Is Corporate Yoga?
Corporate yoga is a type of yoga that takes place exclusively at the workplace. Corporate wellness teaches yoga through simple yoga postures, asanas, breathing techniques, stretches, and specific mindful exercises to corporate employees.
Corporate yoga is conducted to enhance the mental and physical well-being of corporate people. The idea of the corporate is to bring a team or department together, increase productivity, and boost morale.
Corporate yoga is a two-way street for organizations and employees. Corporate yoga enhances not only employees’ well-being but also the organization’s too. If you feel that corporate yoga is only for the welfare of employees, then it is a big NO.
Practicing corporate yoga is gaining importance worldwide as it has proven to alleviate stress and help to improve the mind and body in enormous ways. Many big and small organizations are incorporating corporate yoga in their offices. No wonder corporate yoga is helping them cope with many employees’ and organizations’ shortcomings.
What Is Taught?
If you are confused with the Corporate Yoga syllabus, here is all you need to know. A corporate yoga may incorporate the following:
1. Asanas
Yoga Asanas rapidly burn away the stress that is physically stored in the muscles. These make you more flexible, less prone to injuries, more substantial, and most importantly, keep the sickness at bay. So next time, better practice your asanas.
2. Pranayama
These yogic breathing techniques help rejuvenate your mind and body by keeping you energized and fresh all the time. No wonder these techniques make you more productive. So next time, inhale happiness and exhale your worries.
3. Meditation
When meditation is done correctly, it guides you to perfect relaxation. The relaxation is limited to your mind and body but also your soul. It takes tiredness away from your face and makes you feel energized. So, meditate next time instead of jumping your thoughts.
4. Mudras
Practicing mudras is all you need if you sincerely want to balance your mind and body. Mudras help to balance the five elements our body is made of. So next time, practice Mudras if you wish for health and well-being.
5. Insights
Yoga is not only restricted to mats but more to it. Learn about insights and the fascinating facts of yoga, read the yoga philosophy and yoga anatomy, and you will be stunned to know them. These insights can make your life worth living. It will aid you in dealing with your life issues in the best possible way. So next time, listen to the yoga insights and feel blessed.
6. Yogic Cleansing
People experiencing respiratory or digestive issues must learn and practice the yogic cleansing methods. These are the best techniques to remove toxins from your body and build a solid and stable digestive system. So next time, better remove the toxins from your body and mind with yogic cleansing.
Benefits Of Corporate Yoga
1. Increased Energy
While trying to balance our personal and professional life, we stress ourselves and become the victims of a sedentary lifestyle. The kind of life that we spend while working for 6-9hours decreases our blood circulation and makes us tired and low on energy.
As soon as we start making our bodies move, we begin to increase our energy levels. The proper blood circulation leaves us pumped up with energy. Doing simple exercises and stretches at the workplace for a short time can help us achieve yoga benefits.
2. Reduced Stress
Meeting deadlines, significant responsibilities, and a continuous work schedule make our life stressful, ultimately making us less productive. An increase in stress leads to an increase in the rate of absenteeism. Thus, when you have a stressful life, you would love to escape from everything, which will worsen things.
Yoga at the workplace is the best way to combat stress and its ill effects. Working out at the workplace will help reduce the stress hormone cortisol. Corporate yoga is effective in relieving stress and making you feel re-energized.
3. Higher Confidence
Every form of exercise makes you feel confident. It shows you are a priority for yourself by doing a particular type of workout consistently. Exercises make you flexible but also enhance your confidence.
You can feel that confidence at board meetings, presentations, or even on regular working days. So when you feel low, just devout a specific time for yourself. You can go for a walk, cycle, or even perform home workouts. At the workplace, a particular time for corporate yoga should be set to boost confidence.
4. Improved Posture
Continuous sitting for 8-9 hours makes your body posture stiff and causes neck and back pain that further deteriorates your health and progress. While working, it becomes a compulsion to sit for 6-9 hours in front of computer screens, and these working conditions worsen our health.
Incorporating corporate yoga and performing a few stretching exercises by being at your desk can help relieve your back and neck pain. Devout a time for corporate yoga and prioritize your body. You must not ignore the signals your body is giving; otherwise, you may cause damage to yourself.
5. Better Immunity
Regular yoga strengthens your immune system and stimulates your lymphatic system to flush out the toxins from your body. It also helps in proper blood flow and optimum functioning of all the organs. Also, it facilitates removing all the aches and pains from your body. And a better immunity means fewer chances of falling sick.
Encourage your employees to spend some time practicing yoga and acquire its benefits. It will make them happy and content with the work they do. So to make your employees love their job, practice corporate yoga.
6. Increased Focus
If you feel your employees are losing interest in attending a meeting and other official work, it’s time to boost them up. Start by incorporating yoga sessions at the workplace; these will pump up new energy in your employees, and you start feeling the change in them.
Your employees will have an increased focus and become more attentive at a meeting and other meaningful discussions. Practicing some mindful activities and meditation techniques will help in focussing well. It will help in improving the overall productivity of the place.
7. Improved Breathing
When you are into practicing yoga and mindful activities, it will help you to understand your breathing. Pranayama in yoga is all about breathing techniques that help in focused breathing and eventually help you to concentrate well.
To live in the moment, you must focus on breathing; it relaxes, calms, and makes you more tolerable. In critical decision-making or deadlines, employees must practice focused breathing to maintain proper blood pressure and keep themselves at pace.
8. Boosts Morale
Work stress makes employees lose their morale, leaving them angry and frustrated. Employees who are physically and mentally unwell will hamper the organization’s growth.
Thus, corporate yoga brings magic by elevating employees’ moods and keeping anger at bay. It will also improve their mental and physical health by increasing their confidence and boosting morale. It will help establish an office where colleagues are more compassionate than judgemental. You will feel a healthy and positive environment at the office.
9. Enhanced Creativity
In the office where all you need to think about is deadlines, restricted work, and filthy working culture, your mind stops thinking out of the box. If you practice corporate yoga, see how people start to rejuvenate their thoughts. You will address more sharpness and creativity in their ideas.
Corporate yoga will help to keep your employees relaxed and stress-free, and they will effectively learn to maintain a work-life balance. And as you all know, a calm mind generates excellent ideas. Eventually, corporate yoga will make people think out of the box.
10. Lesser Absenteeism
Being stressed affects our mental growth and makes our bodies prone to various injuries and musculoskeletal pains such as back pain and health conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome.
When one starts doing yoga, it relives its body in different kinds of pain, making your body more energetic. Research shows that corporate yoga has reduced absenteeism due to less sickness and a healthy environment at the workplace. Practicing yoga once or twice a week will significantly decrease stress and absenteeism.
If you are the boss troubled with endless stick leaves from employees, better incorporate a yoga instructor and see the change.
11. Reduced Irritability
Understand your body in a significant way. Irritability and aggression are signs that your body is too stressed out and in pain. Understand these signs and work towards making your mind and body stress accessible. Performing corporate yoga with colleagues will make you feel relaxed.
Practicing of few mindfulness activities will make you feel happy, focused, and compassionate. Thus you won’t be aggressive anymore, and you will be able to understand the situations and people well. So be happy and practice regular yoga.
12. Better Digestion
Continuous sitting not only affects your body posture but also affects your digestion to a great level. Sitting the whole day in front of the screens makes your body plump, dull, and lazy. So it is necessary to add movements to your routine to keep your digestion sound.
Start by doing yoga, and you will see how practicing a few asanas, breathing techniques, and postures help you to amplify your digestion. Gradually you will notice that you have better digestion. You can start with yoga at least twice a week.
13. Greater Productivity
Corporate yoga benefits also do not last on employees but are of greater use to employers. Your employees will work more enthusiastically when they feel great mentally and physically.
It is like give and take when the employer takes care of his employees by organizing corporate yoga, so employees also work efficiently, leading to greater productivity. A stress-free and healthy environment draw a positive impact on the minds of employees, which helps them to work in a better way by giving their 100%.
14. Expanded Flexibility
Flexibility is a must when you want to grow. The same happens with our body, and if you’re going to increase the stamina of your body, you must move your body often by doing exercise, yoga, or any other form of workout.
A flexible body develops a relaxed mind that helps bring growth in various aspects of life. Moving your body improves blood circulation, reduces chronic joint pain, and makes your body more flexible. Thus practicing corporate yoga will help to bring the flexibility of ideas that will help in organizational growth.
Enough about the impotence of corporate yoga; now it is time to learn how you can begin corporate yoga in your organization. Let’s begin!
Things To Consider Before Starting A Corporate Yoga Program
1. Access The Level Of Interest
It is essential to know how many employees are ready for corporate yoga. There will be a difference of opinion in them as some may feel weird about the thought of yoga at the office while others may be excited to look forward to it.
You can send a mail and ask your employees to respond if they are interested or not.
2. Hire A Yoga Expert
Another important part is hiring a well-trained yoga instructor who knows enough yoga to teach corporate employees. A god trainer will effectively understand the problems of employees and will pay efforts to help them.
Also, a good trainer will help you heal better. Nowadays, you can hire a virtual trainer to guide you at office yoga.
3. Personal Conversation
Try to give personal conversation time to each of your employees with the yoga instructor, as some employees may hesitate to talk openly about their problems. So giving solo time will improve the effectiveness of yoga.
It is good if every attendee will end the session on the positive note
4. Time of Yoga Session
Usually, a 45-minute yoga session is generally adequate for corporate yoga, including various asanas, meditation, breathing exercises, and relaxing postures. You can conduct yoga sessions twice a week, depending on your budget.
Fix the time of the yoga schedule; choose a time when your employees are not too busy and can quickly attend the yoga session.
Different Corporate Yoga Programs
If you are confused about choosing what type of yoga program suits you best for your organization, here are we to help you with the best possible explanation.
1. Executive Yoga Program
The executive yoga program is best for batch size 5-15 employees interested in incorporating yoga into their regular life. The program will include sun salutations, breathing exercises, yoga postures, and relaxation techniques. The Executive program has many benefits and will set a strong foundation for yoga in the workplace.
2. Gentle Yoga Program
The gentle yoga program is ideal for bigger size 10-30 employees. As the name suggests, it is a gentle practice of yoga that includes stretching exercises, pain-relief postures, and exercises for improving blood circulation on busy days.
If your employees are going through a particular problem of back or neck pain, then it is suggested to choose the gentle program. Employees can have a private conversation with the yoga instructor and discuss the issues employees face.
3. Suit On, Shoes Off, Program
Suit On, Shoes Off is an exciting yoga program that offers you to take a re-energizing yoga session break after lunch. The main of the program is to pump up your employees’ energy for the second half day at the office.
It is usually observed that after the lunch break, employees feel tired and lethargic. Thus to revamp you for work, these yoga sessions are designed. The program includes exercises focused on postures, pain relief techniques for the neck and back, and breathing techniques for relaxation. These exercises make you up for the day.
So, it was all about the type of programs, and you can always customize them according to your organization. The thing here that matters is the need of employees, so better ask them, understand them, and you are good to go.
Make smart choices for your organization so that it grows and grows.
Exercises At Workplace
1. Meditation
On busy working hard days, your body needs a break for at least 10-minutes. So devout these 10 minutes to meditation and feel the difference. You do not need to move from your place; sit quietly, close your eyes and breathe slowly. Focus on your breathing and practice it religiously.
The meditation will make you calm, relaxed, and also pumped up.
2. Yoga poses
Here are the yoga poses for which you do not need to sit on the mat and move from your desk. Just stay where you are, and you are ready to enjoy the benefits of yoga.
Chair Twist- You must sit straight in your chair with your feet on the floor. Put your right hand on the back of your chair. Now bend towards the right while using your left hand to rotate your spine. Now, try the same with the other side to maintain balance.
Heart Opener- Sit at the edge of your chair while keeping your feet on the floor. Taking your hands behind your back, intermingle them. Now inhale, pushing your knuckles towards the floor and chest upwards.
3. Desk Exercises
Are you tired of sitting on a chair for long hours? Or is your back aching? If your answer is YES, then try these simple desk exercises. Rolling your shoulders, stretching your chest, twisting your arms, and neck turns can help you feel better and remove the stiffness in your body.
Future Of Corporate Yoga
The future of yoga is exceptional. There will be days when corporate yoga and wellness programs will be part of every organization. As we see today, offices and organizations are considered a burden or a daily chore that has to be done. People spend most of their lives in offices but are not really happy there. So now the time has come when we need to take the lead and make offices a comfortable place to work.
When employees are under stress, they become less productive; thus, it will affect the organization’s well-being. So it is better to take the steps that make our employees happy and stress-free. It is always better if everyone enjoys their work because only you can make a difference.
Corporate yoga is all about making a difference, a difference to your workplace. So let us make an organization a better place to work in and make our bodies a better place to work with.
Takeaways
Cultivate mental clarity and focus for improved overall health with corporate yoga, a new way to work.
The idea of corporate yoga is to conduct a yoga session in a highly healthy, safe, and comfortable environment. The ultimate goal of corporate yoga should be to help employees attain optimal health, increase productivity, and boost the entire workforce’s performance.
Establish a connection in your mind and body and become more aware of yourself by incorporating CORPORATE YOGA. Every employee will love it, and once you are started with corporate yoga, there is no way of returning.
Waste no time and incorporate yoga at work!